Happy Valley new series cast as BBC drama returns…

Happy Valley new series cast as BBC drama returns after near seven year hiatus

Happy Valley is without any doubt one of the best BBC drama of the decade, if not ever and after nearly seven years away, it is back for its third and final series on Sunday night.

A very different role for ex Coronation Street barmaid Sarah Lancashire, sergeant Catherine Cawood has had the nation on the edge of its seat in the first two series of the Sally Wainwright drama, largely down to her troubles with Tommy Lee Royce, the man who raped her daughter Becky, with her then killing herself as she struggled to get over the trauma.

The first series saw recently released from prison Tommy nearly kill Catherine in a violent house confrontation, before he ended up back behind bars at the start of Happy Valley series two, with them coming face to face again in a fraught stand-off at his mum's funeral. And, even though he was locked up, Tommy still had an influence over son Ryan, as a woman obsessed with him faked her identity to become a classroom assistant at Ryan's school, before trying to urn the youngster against grandmother Catherine.

A teaser for the first episode of Happy Valley's third and final series read: "Sgt Catherine Cawood discovers the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir, sparking a chain of events that leads straight back to Tommy Lee Royce. Catherine's grandson Ryan is now 16 and has his own ideas about the kind of relationship he wants to have with the man Catherine refuses to acknowledge as the boy's father. Meanwhile, in another part of town a local pharmacist gets in over his head when a neighbour is arrested.

It was confirmed earlier this year that Amit Shah (The Other One, The Long Call), Mark Stanley (The Girl Before, White House Farm) and Mollie Winnard (All Creatures Great And Small, Four Lives) would join the cast for series three.