My first question when sitting down to watch The Gallows Pole was, do we really need another depressing period drama set in Brontë country, where tormented characters run around the moors, crowd into gloomy stone kitchens, and die aged 35?
I needn’t have worried as director Shane Meadows’ new show is very much not that. Set in West Yorkshire’s Cragg Vale, in one of the tiny satellite villages above Hebden Bridge – the northern town known for its hippies, walking routes and being the home of Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire – the BBC three-parter retells the true story of a band of 18th century gold coin counterfeiters, who were so successful that at one point their illicit ventures threatened to up blow up the English economy.
