All Creatures, Happy Valley and Indiana Jones: Yorkshire film and TV's brilliant history and bright future on screen

Yorkshire, though, is inseparable from the advent of film and television. French inventor and artist Louis Le Prince in 1888 filmed shots of his son playing an accordion, his family in the garden of a Roundhay home and traffic on Leeds Bridge. These short, grainy films are acknowledged as some of the first moving pictures - some say the very earliest.

Then in the post-Second World War era, Yorkshire played its part in the British New Wave of so called ‘kitchen sink’ dramas with Room at the Top (1959), shot in Bradford, and, of course, a decade later Ken Loach’s Kes in Barnsley.

This dramatisation of daily life would also be found in Emmerdale, the countryside soap and regional institution which hit the small screen in 1972 and remains a constant in viewers’ lives.

Some scenes are filmed at ITV’s Kirkstall Road studios in Leeds, the home of what was once Yorkshire Television.

In recent years, however, the region has become a go-to option for all kinds of film and television makers wanting to take advantage of its diverse locations.

Screen Yorkshire (SY) has been the organisation at the helm, alongside others such as Bradford Unesco City of Film.

SY chief executive Caroline Cooper Charles says: “Yorkshire is an incredibly dynamic screen industries hub and productions flock to the region for many reasons. Our glorious landscapes and stunning locations hold obvious appeal but equally important is the warm welcome and comprehensive support that’s on offer, no matter the nature or size of the show.”

Founded in 2002, during its first 10 years SY was part of a publicly-funded network of regional screen agencies supported by the UK Film Council, which after the Government changed hands in 2010 was abolished and the nine regional screen agencies were broadly integrated into just one, Creative England.

SY’s staffing was drastically reduced but under the guidance of former CEO, Sally Joynson, it took a more independent, commercial direction. It benefited from £14m of support from the European Regional Development Fund – an amount which has since leveraged £224m of production business, Screen Yorkshire has previously said - and in 2012 set up the Yorkshire Content Fund.

Its first investment was a bit of a gamble, as “we were never sure whether it would catch on or not,” admitted Joynson to The Yorkshire Post just before standing down a year ago.

It was Peaky Blinders - the global hit about a family of gangsters in post-First World War Birmingham starring Cillian Murphy. Much of it was actually shot in Yorkshire, which during its six series stint played host to talent such as Oscar-winning Adrien Brody, playing Luca Changretta in scenes filmed at Bradford’s City Hall. Many notable screen projects have in the years since shot in, or with the investment of, Yorkshire.

Happy Valley is reminding viewers just how impactful the region’s scenery is in the third and final series of Sally Wainwright’s acclaimed series airing on the BBC now.

All Creatures Great and Small – just one of Channel 5’s numerous shows made in the region alongside the likes of The Yorkshire Vet – has brought the stories of James Herriot to modern audiences and highlighted the beauty North Yorkshire to the world. Hull’s Old Town has had its taste, too, doubling for a bygone era London in films such as The Personal History of David Copperfield 2019 and Enola Holmes 2, which came out last year.

One of the world’s biggest directors, Paul Thomas Anderson, used coastal locations including Robin’s Hood Bay and Staithes in his 2017 movie Phantom Thread, while the 2016 Dad's Army film shot in Bridlington. Whitby, of course, will always attract production because of its links to Dracula.

One of the major draws for producers is Yorkshire’s abundant period architecture. Wentworth Woodhouse near Rotherham can be seen Oscar-winning film Darkest Hour from 2017 and hit TV series including ITV's Victoria and BBC's Gentleman Jack. Meanwhile, the Castle Howard estate – so key to the 1981 Granada Television adaptation of Brideshead Revisited – is seen in the first series of Netflix behemoth Bridgerton.

However, the future of film and TV in Yorkshire looks just as bright.

In 2018 came the announcement that Channel 4 – the popular publicly-owned but commerically-funded broadcaster that can offer major opportunities to independent production companies – would base its headquarters in Leeds. It is now up and running, recruiting young people interested in careers in television who might otherwise have moved away.

Elsewhere, the crew behind upcoming Netflix murder mystery series Bodies, which stars Stephen Graham, used Versa Leeds Studios as well as a range of locations in Yorkshire. And rural Yorkshire landscapes will also feature in Hollywood blockbusters set for future release – a Mission: Impossible movie, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Cooper Charles says: “In the last twelve months we’ve had around 40 TV dramas and features shooting in the region and we can only see that figure increasing further, generating even more opportunities for fantastic stories being created here in Yorkshire by our talented production community.”