Behind the scenes of the final series of Happy Valley

And the much-anticipated series will return on BBC 1 on New Year’s Day picking up the story six years after we left it.

Writer Huddersfield’s Sally Wainwright explains what inspired her to write Happy Valley.

“I saw a documentary by Jez Lewis called Shed Your Tears and Walk Away and it was about drug and alcohol problems, specifically in Hebden Bridge,” says Wainwright. “The other influence was that, when I was a kid, there was a series called Juliet Bravo, which I really, really liked. It was actually not filmed far from Hebden Bridge, it was filmed in Todmorden. It was about a female police inspector and it was a really good show. It’s kind of in my top ten TV shows from adolescence, so it was my attempt to revisit that.

“The other big thing that inspired me of course, which I’ve talked about a lot, was Nurse Jackie. I wanted to write my own Nurse Jackie, but obviously I couldn’t write about a nurse, so I wrote about a policewoman instead.”

James Norton, (Tommy Lee Royce) who hails from Malton, explains the premises behind the show.

“Happy Valley is set in the Calder Valley, Halifax, Hebden Bridge area stretching over towards Leeds. It’s about a family - a Police officer rather - called Catherine Cawood, played by the wonderful Sarah Lancashire, and her family; her sister, her grandson and her colleagues. She has a relationship with a man, Tommy who had a relationship, or a very abusive relationship, with her daughter (who took her own life). Her daughter had a son called Ryan, and so Tommy Lee Royce’s son, Ryan, is also Catherine Cawood’s grandson. It has inextricably linked these two characters and they become these two fearsome adversaries.”

Wainwright continues: “It is not a police show, it’s a show about Catherine, who happens to be a police officer. It’s not a police procedural, it’s not a crime show. It’s really about Catherine and about what happened to her in the past and this weird crooked relationship she has with this man who affected her life so badly.”

Wainwright says she believes it is Lancashire’s portrayal of Catherine that makes her such an identifiable character.

“I think that she is an extraordinarily empathetic performer. I think she conveys the real subtleties of the tiny, tiny moment-by-moment thoughts in everything she does. The audience really engages with her.”

She says she always had Lancashire in mind for the role after they worked together on Last Tango In Halifax (also written by Wainwright) where she played Caroline.

“She really captured my imagination. I thought she played Caroline so well, and again she just gets everything. She gets every little detail and she has that fantastic charisma and personality. So again, right from the first series, I had her in my head which really helped when I was creating the character. To be able to see her and have some pretty clear idea of how she would deliver the lines.”

The name of the series, Happy Valley, is in stark contrast to the dark and often tragic lives of its main protagonists.

“I always work closely with police advisors, who are old police officers who have worked in the area, and one of them told me that is what they call the Valley because of issues with drugs,” explains Wainwright.

“For me it reflected the show. It’s dark, but it has also got a lot of humour in it. I think less so in season one, more so in season two. We want to continue that in the new season. It’s still very much about the dark side of life, but it’s also about how within that people always find ways of being funny and warm and human.”

So why does she think audiences love Happy Valley so much?

“It’s odd with Happy Valley, so many people talk about it in such a way that I do now believe it’s pretty good,” she says. “You know the truth is it’s just an alchemy, just an alchemy that some shows somehow manage to press buttons with people. I guess it’s just one of those. You kind of hit a patch of gold, a seam of gold in it somehow. It does always seem to capture people’s imaginations when you are writing about things that are on the wrong side of the law. It’s about transgressive behaviour and I suppose humans are fascinated by transgressive behaviour. I guess that’s why people are so fascinated by crime. It’s a kind of vicarious thing, that we don’t indulge in ourselves but like to watch other people doing it, or we like to see them get caught, or we like to follow the people who sort things out.”

She says she waited six years to bring out series three because she ‘wanted to get to a point where Ryan (Tommy’s son) would be old enough to start making choices about whether he wanted to have a relationship with his dad or not. And could he have a relationship with his dad, and how would Catherine feel about that?

Norton says we see a different Tommy after years in prison. “Tommy Lee Royce is an enigma and a puzzle and a kind of terrifying mess. Genuinely, I am still kind of working him out. I think I had certain preconceptions about him in the first series. We would talk about him quite flippantly as if he is a psychopath. And I did a lot of work into psychopathy and was introduced to some behavioural psychologists and criminal psychologists who were really wonderfully helpful in excavating Tommy and the mindset that he has. Unlike the Tommy we have seen of the first and second series he feels quite affable and in control, I think that’s probably because we arrive in the third series and Tommy has information about something we don’t know about yet. That information, that situation is giving him a sense of contentment.”

Norton says he is very proud of Happy Valley. “I am immensely proud of the series as a whole. Immensely proud that I was able to have a part in it. And it’s wonderful to come back knowing there is such an appetite and a love for the show. I was really proud when I went to America and I realised how far reaching the show is. I think it’s such a specific show about the very specific part of England, and you know the accents and the temperaments and sensibilities of those characters are quite specific to the area. And yet when I go to America, I am amazed at how many people have watched it and how many people love it. And that was a really proud moment, when I realised how it wasn’t only a show loved in the UK but internationally.

“Happy Valley is a must-see because you have one of the best writers in the world, at the top of her game. You have Sarah Lancashire, also an absolute legend in our industry, giving the performance of her life. An amazing cast, Siobhan Finneran and others. It’s just a great community, a great group of people doing great work. I just think it’s a great story, it’s a great thriller. We have got fantastic characters driving it forward. We love playing the characters because they are so beautifully drawn.”

And Wainwright has definitely confirmed this is the last we will see of Happy Valley.

“The intention developed through conversations I had with Sarah to make it a three-parter, to make a trilogy. We always said this would be the final season and it is very definitely the final season.”

Happy Valley series three begins 9pm on Jan 1, New Year’s Day on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.