Channel 4 series A Woman of Substance has been renewed for a second season after becoming a sleeper hit.
The show – a new adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford’s 1979 bonkbuster – was released back in March and has since become Channel 4’s most-streamed series since Russell T Davies’ 2021 Aids drama It’s a Sin.
Vera and Oscar-nominated Secrets & Lies star Brenda Blethyn will return as Emma Harte, a Yorkshire maid who becomes a business mogul, with Outlander’s Jessica Reynolds playing the younger version of the character.
The 1979 novel made Bradford a bestselling author, with over 30 million reading the story of how Yorkshire maid Emma Harte overcame heartbreak and her working-class background to become a wealthy mogul.
The story follows a penniless Emma in the early 1900s as an ambitious maid working for Fairley Hall who is used, impregnated and tossed aside by its aristocratic residents. Decades on, we follow the now-successful heroine ahead of her 80th birthday as she uncovers her children’s plot to take over her retail empire.
Season two will contain eight episodes and will focus on the second half of the novel, with the young Harte attempting to make a name for herself in the wake of the First World War, and the elder Harte battling to win back her life’s work from Jim Fairley (Toby Regbo) in the 1970s.
Before British literary icon Taylor Bradford died in 2024, she gave the drama’s co-writer, Katherine Jakeways, her blessing to adapt the story once again.
But Jakeways revealed that the author had one key request for the upcoming adaptation: to do justice to its setting in the Yorkshire Dales.
“The only thing that she did say was that she wanted to make sure that it was as Yorkshire-based as we could possibly make it, which we wanted to do in any case,” she told The Independent.
Channel 4 interim drama boss Gwawr Lloyd said of the show’s renewal: “Following the incredible success and popularity of the brilliant first series, we’re thrilled to be bringing the incomparable and iconic Emma Harte back to Channel 4 again.
“Series two will continue Emma’s story with all the ambition, drama and family intrigue that made A Woman of Substance such a compelling and irresistible watch.”
Meanwhile, Jakeways and co-writer Roanne Bardsley added: “We couldn’t be more delighted to be back with our beloved Emma Harte. The higher she climbs, the greater the risks, and we’re looking forward to more of everything we adore – heart-soaring romance, gut-wrenching loss, and of course, delicious revenge.”
The show was originally adapted into a Channel 4 series in 1985, starring Deborah Kerr and Jenny Seagrove in the lead roles.
A Woman of Substance airs in the US on Britbox.
