‘Happy Valley’ will be taught as part of a university TV writing course.
‘Happy Valley’ will be taught as part of a university TV writing course
The BBC One drama finished after three series over nine years on Sunday (05.02.23), with 7.5 million fans watching Sergeant Catherine Caywood and Tommy Lee Royce’s final showdown, and Sarah Lancashire tipped for acting awards for her portrayal of the grieving police officer.
Professor Ann Marie Di Mambro from Glasgow’s Caledonian University is now planning to use Sally Wainwright's show in lectures for the MA in TV Fiction Writing course as she says it broke so many rules of television script writing.
She told the Daily Mirror on Friday (10.02.33): “It’s the perfect marriage of brilliant perfect casting. It’s so deeply, deeply emotional. It’s raw from start to finish.
“It goes against a lot of what we teach – that’s what is so wonderful about it. The penultimate episode ends with a phone call between two people (Tommy Lee Royce and son Ryan.)
“You tend to teach people not to over-write the dialogue. Phone calls can be quite dull.
“Don’t have scenes that are too long, but because it’s so unique and so original (it works.)
“I would imagine that it’s written from the heart and these are characters that the writer really believes in, who are so flawed.”
Prof Di Mambro added 58-year-old actress Sarah’s character of Sergeant Cawood is also mould-breaking as she plays an ageing single woman facing retirement.
‘Happy Valley’ writer Sally has been praised for setting the show’s finale around a kitchen table, where Catherine and Tommy have a war of words about her keeping the fact he had a son secret from him.
The escaped convict then sets himself on fire, with the final scene showing the police officer at her late daughter Becky’s grave getting a text saying he had died in hospital.
Tagged in Sarah Lancashire