In 1944, H. J. Massingham saw Thompson's description of the disintegration of "a local self-acting society living by a fixed pattern of behaviour" as an elegiac evocation of what he called "this great tragic epic".

[3] In a 1982 review in The Boston Phoenix, Ariel Swartley described what she felt was "the revelation of Lark Rise to Candleford": "To those who know England best through its novelists, this may be the first time they've heard the 'lower classes' speak for themselves – and salutary it is, too.

It appears as allegory, for example in Laura's first visit to Candleford without her parents: the journey from her tiny village to the sophisticated town representing the temporal changes that would affect her whole community.

[2] Although the works are autobiographical, Thompson distances herself from her childhood persona by telling the tale in the third person; she appears in the book as "Laura Timmins", rather than her real maiden name of Flora Timms.

Dewhurst's concept was to reflect the familiarity, one for another, of the village inhabitants by staging the plays as a promenade, with the theatre seats removed and the actors, musicians and audience intermingling.

[12] "It is a most extraordinary event...It will send most spectators out wiser and happier human beings...one of those rare theatrical occasions with a genuine healing quality", wrote theatre critic Michael Billington of The Guardian.