Last week, as Ryan was leaving his visit with his 'father', Tommy (James Norton) asked him how his bungee jump went. It felt like a glib throwaway question, especially when he proposed the idea of a father and son jump in a few years. Even Ryan (Rhys Connah) dismissed...
Happy Valley has always been Ryan's story. That's the main reason we had to wait such a long time for this final series. Sally Wainwright wanted to wait for Ryan (and the actor Rhys Connah) to be of age to tell the story she wanted. Following on from last week's...
I have praised Sally Wainwright's dialogue in every review of one of her shows I've ever written. The second episode of Happy Valley series 3 proved it can be just as powerful in its quieter moments. The bombshell that it's Claire (Siobhan Finneran) and her boyfriend...
ere were times when I worried the BBC had forgotten they'd commissioned a third series of Happy Valley. Sally Wainwright had busied herself with passion project Gentlemen Jack and started work on a new Disney+ series, The Ballad of Renegade Nell. It had seemed Happy...
When it came time to compile our Best of the Year piece two things struck me. The first was that wasn't one BIG show that resonated with people in the same way Normal People and I May Destroy You did in 2020 or It's a Sin and Mare of Easttown last year. The second was...
This year the BBC turns 100. Fundamental to Britain and funded by licence fee payers, the BBC has garnered a worldwide reputation for quality. For this special post highlighting the highlights of the corporation's massive contribution to television, I've decided to...
The BBC has released new pictures from the third series of Sally Wainwright’s multi-BAFTA award-winning hit Happy Valley. The six-part series, starring Sarah Lancashire in her iconic role of Sergeant Catherine Cawood for the last time, is made by Lookout Point for BBC...
Shockingly, I only watched Sally Wainwright’s Happy Valley for the first time earlier this year. As incredibly late to the party I was, I’m glad I amended this, as the BBC crime drama encapsulates everything I love about television. As it returns to our screens later...
After a summer of sport, TV is getting its act together this autumn. Yes, the World Cup will disrupt things in November but the streamers have plenty to keep us non-footie fans occupied. Here are the shows we're looking forward to over the next few months. Minx...
When Paul Abbott's Clocking Off debuted in January of 2000 the TV landscape looked entirely different. Abbott, who has since gone to success with his semi-autobiographical comedy-drama Shameless and his police drama No Offence, had been working in television for a...
Sarah Lancashire is to return for a second season of HBO Max's re-telling of Julia Child's life story in Julia Executive Producers Chris Keyser and Daniel Goldfarb said, “Julia Child tends to make people happy. In a bleak world, she is a welcome balm. Making this...
Sky have secured the rights to Julia, starring Sarah Lancashire and David Hyde Pearce. The series is inspired by Julia Child’s extraordinary life and her long-running television series, “The French Chef,” which pioneered the now popular genre of cooking shows. Through...
Filming has begun in West Yorkshire on the third and final series of Sally Wainwright’s smash hit, multi-BAFTA award-winning BBC drama Happy Valley. Sarah Lancashire returns to her iconic role of Sergeant Catherine Cawood for six new episodes, long discussed by Sally...
Sarah Lancashire is a first-rate actress, but she’s in danger of wasting her talent on second-rate roles. Birthday Girl was a case in point. Billed as a daringly humorous piece in which she played a leukaemia sufferer hiding the recurrence of her illness fr om her...