Ackley Bridge film crews to return to Halifax next month - new cast members also announced

This will be the fourth series of the TV drama which has previously filmed at locations around Calderdale including Westgate Arcade in Halifax and the former St Catherine's Catholic High School.

Robyn Cara (Life, Hounslow Diaries) plays funny, mixed race pupil Kayla, torn between her white Mum’s family and her traditional Pakistani Dad’s family; her best friend Fizza, played by Yasmin Al Khudhairi (Hilda) is a fiercely intelligent, fist-in-the-air firebrand; and Ryan Dean (The Gentleman, Penny on M.A.R.S.) takes the role of Johnny, a cocky, good looking member of the traveller community who is deeply suspicious of school, and who catches the eye of both Kayla and Fizza.

Further new pupils including Marina, Kayla’s ‘mean girl’ sister, played by Carla Woodcock (Free Rein Pandora) and Tahir, played by Shobhit Piasa (Londonstani), the smooth talking billy-liar nephew of Kaneez, whose salesman’s patter hides a family secret. Conor McIntyre (Coronation Street) guest stars as Johnny’s Grandad.

They join the returning cast including Sunetra Sarker, Rob James Collier, Jo Joyner, Charlie Hardwick, Tony Jayawardena, Fern Deacon, Phoebe Tuffs-Berry, Cody Ryan, Nazmeen Kauser and Zara Salim.

This new series of Ackley will air as ten 30 minute episodes, stripped across two weeks in an earlier evening slot in 2021.

Ackley has been nominated for Drama Series at the 2020 RTS Awards and has won Best Drama, Best Actor, Best Director Fiction and Best Music and Use of Music at the RTS Yorkshire Awards.

Inspired by real-life Lancashire and Yorkshire schools established to integrate the white and Asian communities in some of the most divided towns in the country, Ackley Bridge has won praise across its previous three series for tackling real-life situations and issues in an irreverent, insightful way, with humour and punchy, big hearted stories.