We’re bereft. Happy Valley has ended for good. No more Catherine and Clare having mugs of tea on the back step, no more Sgt Cawood dressed like RoboCop, no more Ryan, no more Tommy Lee Royce. It went out with a bang, but still we’re bereft. What could possibly fill that gap?
Luckily for fans, creator Sally Wainwright has a healthy back-catalogue including comedy At Home With the Braithwaites, Last Tango in Halifax, Unforgiven, Gentleman Jack and more, plus highwaywoman drama The Ballad of Renegade Nell coming this year to Disney+, so you could start there. And try the below, a hand-picked selection of great dramas – some crime, some not – that carry a flavour of Happy Valley’s brilliant writing, real-feeling characters and unforgettable performances.
Last Tango in Halifax
Stream on: BBC iPlayer (UK), Netflix (US)
Wainwright was inspired by her mother’s late-in-life love story to write this Bafta-winning 5-series BBC drama.
Luckily for fans, creator Sally Wainwright has a healthy back-catalogue including comedy At Home With the Braithwaites, Last Tango in Halifax, Unforgiven, Gentleman Jack and more, plus highwaywoman drama The Ballad of Renegade Nell coming this year to Disney+, so you could start there. And try the below, a hand-picked selection of great dramas – some crime, some not – that carry a flavour of Happy Valley’s brilliant writing, real-feeling characters and unforgettable performances.
Last Tango in Halifax
Stream on: BBC iPlayer (UK), Netflix (US)
Wainwright was inspired by her mother’s late-in-life love story to write this Bafta-winning 5-series BBC drama.
- 2/6/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Simon Brew Oct 10, 2016
From Doctor Who and The FiveIsh Doctors to Campion and Button Moon: we chat to the fifth Doctor, Mr Peter Davison...
Ah, the mighty Peter Davison. The Fifth Doctor, All Creatures Great And Small, Campion, and living in a house with Freddy from Rainbow are just some of the topics we chatted to him about, ahead of the publication of his terrific autobiography, Is There Life Outside The Box.
We’ve got a fair bit to get through, so without further ado….
I got a sense you thoroughly enjoyed writing this book, once you were over some initial research-y hurdles. Would that be fair?
Yeah, that’s fair. It was kind of a journey, really. A reassembling. I’ve had these memories, and it was really a chance to put them down on paper and order them. Everything fragments as you get older, and things come out,...
From Doctor Who and The FiveIsh Doctors to Campion and Button Moon: we chat to the fifth Doctor, Mr Peter Davison...
Ah, the mighty Peter Davison. The Fifth Doctor, All Creatures Great And Small, Campion, and living in a house with Freddy from Rainbow are just some of the topics we chatted to him about, ahead of the publication of his terrific autobiography, Is There Life Outside The Box.
We’ve got a fair bit to get through, so without further ado….
I got a sense you thoroughly enjoyed writing this book, once you were over some initial research-y hurdles. Would that be fair?
Yeah, that’s fair. It was kind of a journey, really. A reassembling. I’ve had these memories, and it was really a chance to put them down on paper and order them. Everything fragments as you get older, and things come out,...
- 10/6/2016
- Den of Geek
Feature Alex Westthorp 16 Apr 2014 - 07:00
Alex's trek through the film roles of actors who've played the Doctor reaches Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy...
Read the previous part in this series, Doctor Who: the film careers of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, here.
In March 1981, as he made his Doctor Who debut, Peter Davison was already one the best known faces on British television. Not only was he the star of both a BBC and an ITV sitcom - Sink Or Swim and Holding The Fort - but as the young and slightly reckless Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great And Small, about the often humorous cases of Yorkshire vet James Herriot and his colleagues, he had cemented his stardom. The part led, indirectly, to his casting as the venerable Time Lord.
The recently installed Doctor Who producer, John Nathan-Turner, had been the Production Unit Manager on...
Alex's trek through the film roles of actors who've played the Doctor reaches Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy...
Read the previous part in this series, Doctor Who: the film careers of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, here.
In March 1981, as he made his Doctor Who debut, Peter Davison was already one the best known faces on British television. Not only was he the star of both a BBC and an ITV sitcom - Sink Or Swim and Holding The Fort - but as the young and slightly reckless Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great And Small, about the often humorous cases of Yorkshire vet James Herriot and his colleagues, he had cemented his stardom. The part led, indirectly, to his casting as the venerable Time Lord.
The recently installed Doctor Who producer, John Nathan-Turner, had been the Production Unit Manager on...
- 4/15/2014
- by louisamellor
- Den of Geek
Outstanding actor of stage and screen who made his name as Bri in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg
The British theatre changed for ever when Joe Melia, as the sardonic teacher Bri, pushed a severely disabled 10-year-old girl in a wheelchair on to the stage of the Glasgow Citizens in May 1967 and proceeded to make satirical jokes about the medical profession while his marriage was disintegrating. The play was Peter Nichols's A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, which transformed the way disability was discussed on the stage. It made the names overnight of its author, the director Michael Blakemore, and Melia. Albert Finney took over the role of Bri on Broadway.
Flat-footed, slightly hunched, always leaning towards a point of view, Melia, who has died aged 77, was a distinctive and compassionate actor who brought a strain of the music hall to the stage, a sense of being an outsider.
The British theatre changed for ever when Joe Melia, as the sardonic teacher Bri, pushed a severely disabled 10-year-old girl in a wheelchair on to the stage of the Glasgow Citizens in May 1967 and proceeded to make satirical jokes about the medical profession while his marriage was disintegrating. The play was Peter Nichols's A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, which transformed the way disability was discussed on the stage. It made the names overnight of its author, the director Michael Blakemore, and Melia. Albert Finney took over the role of Bri on Broadway.
Flat-footed, slightly hunched, always leaning towards a point of view, Melia, who has died aged 77, was a distinctive and compassionate actor who brought a strain of the music hall to the stage, a sense of being an outsider.
- 11/7/2012
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
Craig Updegrove's designed the poster for the Anchorage International Film Festival, opening today and running through December 11.
"Peter Kosminsky has earned that rare accolade for a director of television drama: a retrospective at the BFI." In the Telegraph, Jasper Rees notes that Kosminsky is "a pretty much unique figure in contemporary television who has devoted his career to giving the powerful sleepless nights. Tony Blair's sofa cabinet all hated The Government Inspector. The NHS was excoriated in Innocents, his drama about Bristol heart surgeons. The MoD weren't big fans of his early documentary about the Falklands. Laws have been rewritten thanks to Kosminsky's zest for asking awkward questions in front of millions of viewers." Peter Kosminsky: Making Mischief opens today and runs through December 22. On a somewhat related note — it's about British television, anyway — for Film Quarterly, Mark Fisher looks back at Andrew Davies's A Very Peculiar Practice,...
"Peter Kosminsky has earned that rare accolade for a director of television drama: a retrospective at the BFI." In the Telegraph, Jasper Rees notes that Kosminsky is "a pretty much unique figure in contemporary television who has devoted his career to giving the powerful sleepless nights. Tony Blair's sofa cabinet all hated The Government Inspector. The NHS was excoriated in Innocents, his drama about Bristol heart surgeons. The MoD weren't big fans of his early documentary about the Falklands. Laws have been rewritten thanks to Kosminsky's zest for asking awkward questions in front of millions of viewers." Peter Kosminsky: Making Mischief opens today and runs through December 22. On a somewhat related note — it's about British television, anyway — for Film Quarterly, Mark Fisher looks back at Andrew Davies's A Very Peculiar Practice,...
- 12/2/2011
- MUBI
Actor with great stage presence who found his metier in comic and satirical roles
There was something extra-terrestrial about the character actor Graham Crowden, who has died aged 87 – a mix of the ethereal eccentricity of Ralph Richardson and the Scottish lunacy and skewiff authoritarianism of Alastair Sim. He specialised in portraying doctors, lawyers or teachers in a satirical way.
Crowden was a tall, red-haired, serious and sometimes professionally diffident man – he turned down the opportunity of succeeding Jon Pertwee as the fourth Doctor Who, remarking that working with a lot of Daleks did not sound like much fun. He had a tremendous stage presence, always moving with an emphatic, loping gait.
Despite his eminence in plays at the Royal Court and the National Theatre, where he introduced roles in works by Nf Simpson and Tom Stoppard, and in films directed by Lindsay Anderson, he did not become widely familiar until...
There was something extra-terrestrial about the character actor Graham Crowden, who has died aged 87 – a mix of the ethereal eccentricity of Ralph Richardson and the Scottish lunacy and skewiff authoritarianism of Alastair Sim. He specialised in portraying doctors, lawyers or teachers in a satirical way.
Crowden was a tall, red-haired, serious and sometimes professionally diffident man – he turned down the opportunity of succeeding Jon Pertwee as the fourth Doctor Who, remarking that working with a lot of Daleks did not sound like much fun. He had a tremendous stage presence, always moving with an emphatic, loping gait.
Despite his eminence in plays at the Royal Court and the National Theatre, where he introduced roles in works by Nf Simpson and Tom Stoppard, and in films directed by Lindsay Anderson, he did not become widely familiar until...
- 10/22/2010
- by Michael Coveney
- The Guardian - Film News
Career of actor best known for TV roles in Waiting for God and A Very Peculiar Practice spanned more than 50 years
Actor Graham Crowden has died aged 87, his agent said today.
The Edinburgh-born actor was probably best known for his roles in the television shows Waiting For God and A Very Peculiar Practice.
His agent Sue Grantley said: "He was a wonderful, wonderful man and a brilliant actor and we will miss him terribly."
In a career spanning more than half a century, he appeared in films including the cult 1968 movie If … and the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only.
He turned down the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who after the departure of Jon Pertwee but later appeared in an episode of the longrunning science fiction series as a villain opposite Tom Baker.
He leaves a wife and several children including a daughter, Sarah, who followed him into acting
Television
guardian.
Actor Graham Crowden has died aged 87, his agent said today.
The Edinburgh-born actor was probably best known for his roles in the television shows Waiting For God and A Very Peculiar Practice.
His agent Sue Grantley said: "He was a wonderful, wonderful man and a brilliant actor and we will miss him terribly."
In a career spanning more than half a century, he appeared in films including the cult 1968 movie If … and the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only.
He turned down the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who after the departure of Jon Pertwee but later appeared in an episode of the longrunning science fiction series as a villain opposite Tom Baker.
He leaves a wife and several children including a daughter, Sarah, who followed him into acting
Television
guardian.
- 10/21/2010
- The Guardian - Film News
Oh my goodness, I’ve been in love with Peter Davison for 25 years -- through All Creatures Great and Small and Doctor Who and Albert Campion and A Very Peculiar Practice -- and oh dear, I’ve just fallen in love with him all over again in The Last Detective. This 2003-2007 ITV series never aired in the U.S., but now at least we can watch it on DVD. Which is a damn sight better than the Brits get, actually: a two-disc set is all that’s available in Region 2, which, I’m guessing, includes only the first of the four series in the Complete Collection, just out in Region 1. We get nine discs and seventeen episodes... although they’re more like mini movies: after the 90-minute pilot, each subsequent story is about 75 minutes long. (There’s also an entire bonus movie: a standalone adaptation from 1981 starring Bernard Cribbins...
- 2/3/2009
- by MaryAnn Johanson
- www.flickfilosopher.com
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