ianlouisiana Review of Happy Valley

Happy Valley (2014–2023)

Wonderful writing,great performances.TV drama at its best.

[10/10 · 13 May 2014]

One day Mr S.Pemberton will be recognised for the superb actor that he is.In "Benidorm" he plays the outwardly crass Garvey paterfamilias as a completely believable bloody - minded Manc,but his performance slowly reveals him to be a loving husband and father frustrated by his inability to articulate his emotions. From "The League of Gentlemen" to "Inside No.9" he has displayed the ability to act and perform comedy outside the box and in "Happy Valley" he has reached a new level as an embittered accountant who conceives a plan to hold his boss's daughter for ransom after being refused a pay rise.He passes the plan on to a local villain then finds his boss has changed his mind. Horror - stricken,he goes to the local nick where he meets sympathetic Sgt Cawood(the equally inspired Miss S.Lancashire),but runs off before she can get the truth out of him. Sgt Cawood has what you might call "issues" as her daughter committed suicide after giving birth to a child as a result of rape.Incidentally,she is buried in a graveyard near Sylvia Plath.Not surprisingly the child has "issues" too as does Sgt Cawood's sister(The mighty Miss S Finneran - Mrs Garvey in "Benidorm" -who is a recovering heroin addict. But please don't think that "Happy Valley" is a drama that disappears up it's own self - pitying bottom because all the women are too tough for that particular cliché to apply. Instead they front it out as the rapist is released from prison,gets a job with the local bad guy who is engineering the kidnapping and proceeds to rape the victim. Miss Lancashire is the best,toughest and cleverest female cop since Miss Frances McDormand in "Fargo".It would never surprise me if in the end she didn't feed the rapist into a woodchipper.I certainly don't fancy his chances of staying alive,let alone free. What with "Happy Valley" and the female - led "The Crimson Field",the BBC are leading TV drama out of its male - dominated somewhat patriarchal comfort - zone and giving us some real warts and all portraits of women who are not content to make tea and cakes while hubby rides home on the 4.55.from Victoria.