Philip Franks

The main theme of the novel, according to a Preface by Dickens, is selfishness, portrayed in a satirical fashion using all the members of the Chuzzlewit family.

A British police constable and his doctor wife, weary of the turmoil in contemporary London, decide to move and work in a quiet village where life is livelier than they anticipated.

"The Darling Buds of May" paints an idyllic picture of 1950's rural England as seen through the lives of the Larkins, a farm family living in Kent. The show revolves around Pa Larkin (David Jason), a man of a kind and mischievous nature with a penchant for getting into scrapes and talking his way out of them with equal equanimity; and his daughters (including Catherine Zeta-Jones, in the role that launched her career), as they deal with growing up and discovering the joys and sorrows of young love.