Into The Valley:Happy Valley S1.

"I'm Catherine. I'm forty-seven. I'm divorced. I live with my sister who's a recovering heroin addict. I've two grown-up children - one dead, one who don't speak to me - and a grandson" - Catherine Cawood

It's pretty early on in series one of Happy Valley (BBC1/iPlayer, created and written by Sally Wainwright and directed by, variously, Euros Lyn, Tim Fywell, and Wainwright herself) that Catherine Cawood introduces herself, quite thoroughly, to us. Most of you will know who Catherine Cawood is by now. The third and final series finished, to great acclaim, just four days ago.

But, as so often, I'm behind the times. Series one of Happy Valley first aired in 2014 and, back then, I didn't even have a working telly. I certainly hadn't started this blog yet. But, with all the good reviews I'd read and with friends raving about, I thought it was finally time to go in. I'm glad I did.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's tense, gripping, disturbing, and even eerie in places. It's also, on occasions, very violent. Even more often it can be unremittingly bleak. Which sometimes stands in stark contrast with a soundtrack that features upbeat tunes from Kate Bush, Tears For Fears, and Martha and the Muffins (plus a jaunty, if dissatisfied, Jake Bugg theme) and it certainly shows another, seedier, side of life to what you might imagine from its picturesque West Yorkshire location.

The towns and villages of Halifax, Hebden Bridge, Mytholmroyd, Sowerby Bridge, Heptonstall, and Todmorden look incredibly scenic. Perched between rolling green hills, there are old stone bridges, dry stone walls, and endless rows of majestic pylons. The town centres and converted mills where much of the action is set are showcases for the very best in post-industrial architecture.

But it's the decline in these societies brought about by the end of these traditional industries that is the focus for the actual meat of Happy Valley. Drugs have ripped through Happy Valley and as long as drugs remain illegal, and are seen to be a criminal problem rather than a health issue, they will bring criminals with them. Some pretty bloody nasty ones, it turns out.

Catherine (Sarah Lancashire, doing an excellent job in disproving the canard that former soap stars never go on to do anything of worth) is a former detective, now police sergeant, whose teenage daughter Becky killed herself, after being raped, eight years before the story starts. The ensuing breakdown that Catherine suffered caused her to split with her husband Richard (Derek Riddell) and she's ended up living with her sister Clare (Siobhan Finneran), a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict.

Between them, Catherine and Clare are bringing up the son Becky had as a result of her rape. Ryan (Rhys Connah) is that son and his father, though Ryan doesn't know it to begin with and Catherine would rather it stay that way, is Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton) who has just been released from prison.

Tommy is a terrible father, completely undeserving of the word, but then Tommy is a terrible person all round. He is a villain for the ages. Often those who make television programmes try to give their baddies at least some kind of ambiguity but Tommy has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He's an almost impossibly evil psychopath and a homicidal sadist. Even his criminal associates are disgusted by him.

When he takes a labouring job with Ashley Cowgill (Joe Armstrong), another nasty piece of work, he finds himself, quite happily, embroiled in another potentially lethal criminal enterprise along with the more reluctant Lewis Whippey (Adam Long). The unlikely instigator of the plan is mild mannered accountant Kevin (Steve Pemberton).

 

Kevin works for local business magnate, the very rich Nevison Gallagher (George Costigan), but he's long carried a grudge against him. Now, however, Kevin wants Nevison to give him a rise so he can send his young girls to a better school. When Nevison tells Kevin he'll "think about it" it causes Kevin to embark on a plan of action he will surely come to severely regret. A plan of action that eventually will even implicate his wife Jenny (Julia Ford), a wheelchair user in the early stages of MS.

When Kevin goes to visit Ashley, Ashley makes him an offer - of a beer - but Kevin makes Ashley a far more tempting, and much riskier, offer. A huge can of worms is opened up for everybody involved. Not least the Gallagher family. Nevison's wife, Helen (Jill Baker), has her own very serious health concerns. She's been diagnosed with terminal liver cancer.

Nevison's daughter, Ann (Charlie Murphy), has her own issues. Privately educated at a huge cost, she's out of work and though she doesn't totally agree with everything Nevison stands for, she does hold some sway in the family and she is clearly adored by both her parents. 

Catherine's own family, as outlined in this piece's opening quote, is hardly straightforward either. Though she's broken up with Richard, and he's remarried to Ros (Kelly Harrison), he still pops round to see Catherine for tea and sympathy. And a bit of 'how's your father' if the mood suits. Richard, a journalist, is in danger of losing his job and looking to write a big story that will save his career. 

If he'd only pay more attention to his own surroundings he'd see the story is right in front of his eyes. The son that Catherine says doesn't speak to her, Daniel (Karl Davies), does in fact speak to her. He just doesn't speak to her very kindly. Like Richard, he can't see why Catherine has taken Ryan on. He can barely look at Ryan and calls him a "thing". Hopefully, with his wife Lucy (Amelia Young) expecting, he'll treat his own child better.

Catherine herself has a no nonsense attitude, she's known for getting the job done and clearly knows how to relate to ordinary people. She finds "the common touch" to be highly effective but when she berates a junior PC, Kirsten McAskill (Sophie Rundle), by telling her she needs to toughen up it's a decision she will come to regret.

Kirsten has the misfortune of running into Tommy. Or him her. But does Catherine, understandably, have a blind spot when it comes to Tommy? Their clash will clearly be the main thread that runs through this series (and, I believe, all the others) but Catherine's intentions towards Tommy become very clear when she announces that she doesn't want to deal with him 'rationally', she wants to deal with him 'effectively'.

Some of the other police officers, not least Yorkshire Police District Commander Praveen Badal (Ramon Tikaram), are even more circumspect when it comes to doing their jobs properly. Especially if in doing so they anger powerful people. The detectives, at least in the form of DI Phil Crabtree (Alan McKenna), are, however, very effective. It's almost hard to believe when you see the state of certain police forces, the Met particularly, now.

In Happy Valley, there are lots of shots of back garden washing lines, lots of cigarettes smoked, and , more than anything else - it is Yorkshire after all, there are copious cups of tea drunk. Small time, and big time, criminals are regularly dismissed as scrotes and toerags but their crimes are not quite so easy to laugh off. Not when they stretch to kidnap, abduction, rape, and murder. Some of the crime scenes look like photos from Abu Ghraib. It's almost light relief when someone steals an ice cream van.

Very early on there are moral compromises to be made but, aside from the crime aspect of the drama, Happy Valley does a very good job at drilling down on the pressure that work, that life, has on our own personal relationships and, even more, how our upbringing, our parents and the social milieu in which we operate in, can influence the paths our lives take.

It's a very strong person who resists all temptation. Because it's nine years old some of the references sound a bit dated (a speeding driver is compared to Jenson Button, a young Man City fan claims his favourite player is Edin Dzeko) but that's no problem. It sets series one of Happy Valley in a time as surely as the Upper Calder Valley gives it a precise geographical location.

There are decent cameos from Caroline O'Neill as Tommy's drug addicted mother and Adam Nagaitis as Brett, a man who can fairly be described as either a scrote or a toerag (and a man who is well out of his league with the likes of Tommy) and, even in this bleakest of worlds, there are genuinely touching moments.

When Ryan asks Catherine if Richard is his grandad and if he can play football with him and when a dead police officer's belongings are methodically removed from her locker and cleared out were the two scenes that hit me in the gut the hardest. But, really, there's no slack at all when it comes to Happy Valley. It's one of those shows that as soon as one episode finishes you can't help but dive straight into the next one. I'll be watching the second series very soon and then I'll only be seven years behind everyone else.