So, another costume drama from the BBC. In my review of the last episode of Sense and Sensibility I asked whether we need more of these – and decided that when it comes to Austen, and indeed Dickens, the answer is a definite no, for now at least (though there are still wonderful Dickens novels, such as Dombey and Son which haven’t been touched). But we can take comfort, I guess, from the fact that this is an adaptation of a much less known text – Lark Rise To Candleford, a semi-autobiographical set of novels, from the 1940s, by Flora Thompson.

That’s not to say that you don’t get a distinct sense of deja vu when you look at the cast list, however: here’s Claire Skinner from Sense and Sensibility, there’s Julia Sawalha from Cranford. Add in costume drama stalwarts Ben Miles and Victoria Hamilton and the argument that this is something significantly different starts to fall a little flat. But then I’m such a sucker for these shows…

Lark Rise To Candleford starts with a golden-tinged picture of a rural idyll somewhere in the south of England – this is Lark Rise. Everyone is desperately poor, but young lovers still roll about in the corn fields, and the ale pours freely. Our narrator is Laura – a reader, a thinker and a dreamer, whose own mother realises that she was born for somewhere bigger than this cosy hamlet. Like Belle from Beauty and the Beast, if you will. Nevertheless, she still isn’t pleased when her mother sends her to work with cousin Dorcas in “hoity-toity” Candleford. “I’ve never even been inside a post office!” she half-sobs.

Compared with Lark Rise, Candleford is positively cosmopolitan – though we’d probably consider it a small village. Around the dining table at the post office, Laura is faced with a formidable ensemble: Julia Sawalha, Mark Heap, Claire Skinner and a rather grumpy Liz Smith. In other words, some of our best dramatic and comedy actors – no wonder she looks like the cat who got the cream. That, and the fact that in Candleford she gets her own room.

Back in Lark Rise, a miracle is underway: Dawn French is acting. Not over-acting, just acting. I know, unbelievable. But not all is calm, as the inhabitants of Lark Rise are starting to get annoyed that the Candleford post office states that their hamlet lies more than eight miles away, and so charges for the delivery of telegrams. Before you can say “someone ought to teach that lot a lesson!”, they’re… planning to teach that lot a lesson, starting with a letter to the postmaster general, written by Laura’s father.

In Candleford, Laura is quick to notice everything – that Dorcas is in love with a (married) member of the aristocracy, and that the ladies of Candleford are terrible snobs. Olivia Hallinan isn’t known to me from anything else (although she took the main role in Sugar Rush), but she is wonderful. She doesn’t actually say a whole lot, but everything she does say is forceful, heart-felt and to the point. Everything else she says with her eyes. Julia Sawalha is great too, as not only does she play Dorcas as a thoroughly modern and astute businesswoman, she’s also just a little quirky. A winning combination, certainly.

Back to the plot then, and Queenie, a Lark Rise resident, is unable to pay to receive a telegram saying that her brother is ill. When he passes away, the fact that Dorcas delivers the message personally isn’t enough to stop a hardening of feelings towards the Candleford post office. And so both sides agree to measure the distance (with obligatory nod to the Spaghetti Western face-off). Laura, of course, is caught between the two camps, but can also be the one to deliver Dorcas’s idea of taking the most direct route, rather than the main road. It turns out that it’s a few yards short of eight miles, of course.

Just as I was with Sense and Sensibility, I am torn between being a little tired of bonnets, and finding myself thoroughly enjoying this. The BBC just do these so very well, and seeing as though TV is full of so much rubbish, I simply can’t bring myself to be too critical. Sawalha and Hallinan are too engaging, Mark Heap is too good at his role as the excessively pious delivery man (pitched almost exactly halfway between Brian Topp and Alan Statham), and it looks too damn lovely. I might be wrong in thinking like this, but if the BBC keeps churning them out, I’ll keep on lapping them up.