Little Big Business

Between the fourth and fifth seasons of the hugely popular sitcom The Larkins, star David Kossoff took time off from being second fiddle as the put-upon husband, Alf Larkin, to make a pilot for a show written especially for him. 

Kossoff starred as a wise but stubborn furniture maker and master craftsman by the name of Marcus Lieberman. Having arrived in England some years before as a Latvian immigrant without so much as a penny in his pocket, Marcus was, with some justification, proud of the fact that he had built a thriving business for himself. However, when he introduced his educated and equally ambitious son Simon into the business, he was forced to modernize. Granada Television were impressed enough to order a full series although filming had to wait until Kossoff was free of his commitment to series five of The Larkins, which didn't finish until December 1963. 

With A Little Big Business running from February to April 1964, series six of The Larkins running from July to August and then 'ALBB' series two going out from January to March 1965, David Kossoff was seldom off our TV screens for almost a decade (The Larkins had debuted in 1958). For the series proper there were numerous cast changes from the pilot with most notably Francis Matthews (later TV's Paul Temple) taking over from James Maxwell in the role of Simon. Little Big Business (the 'A' was dropped for the last series) was a gentle generation-gap comedy full of Jewish humour and inspired by Kossoff's own experiences of working in the furniture trade prior to becoming an actor.

Published on December 31st, 2018. Written by Laurence Marcus for Television Heaven.