'Happy Valley' Season 3: Producer Explains Delay To Sarah Lancashire Police Drama

There’s good news and bad news for the many fans of crime drama ‘Happy Valley’.

A third series of the hit show, starring Sarah Lancashire as Sgt Catherine Cawood, will be making it to screen.

Despite reports of the award-winning actress’s initial reluctance to return to the role, Sarah previously explained how she was convinced to return.

It’s not the actors who are proving the brake on the project, despite James Norton’s soaring popularity since he first appeared as Catherine’s Nemesis Tommy Lee Royce. The delay is, in fact, due to writer Sally Wainwright’s talents being very much in demand.

Sally’s duties on other projects will mean that the third series won’t happen any time soon, with the show’s exec producer Nicola Schindler confirming that the earliest we’ll see it on screen is September 2018.

Nicola revealed:

“We are working on a new idea for Sally for BBC1 which will be next year so the earliest Happy Valley would be would be towards the end of 2018 I would suspect.

“She won’t write the [Happy Valley] scripts for some time but Sally’s determined to do it, Sarah’s determined to do it.”

Another reason for the delay is that Sally Wainwright is reportedly keen for the drama’s characters to move on in time before she engages with them again.

Nicola said: “You look at the characters that are left, there is Sarah, there is James Norton and there is a young boy, who the minute he turns into a teenager it becomes a much more interesting story.”

The drama won a BAFTA Award in 2015 for Best Drama Series.