Last Tango in Halifax is a British romantic comedy drama series that began broadcasting on BBC One on 20 November 2012 until 15 March 2020. The series stars Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as Alan and Celia, two widowed old aged pensioners (OAPs) who reconnect and fall in love after decades apart.
The series has been praised for its acting and dialogue, as well as its portrayal of the older generation. Jane Shilling of The Daily Telegraph summarised the series as "a triumph against TV's ageism", while Lucy Harmer, an executive of Age UK, endorsed the programme's portryal of Alan and Celia as "two real, rounded individuals". Last Tango in Halifax accrued four nominations for the 2013 British Academy Television Awards and won the British Academy Television Award for Best Drama Series.
Synopsis Set in Yorkshire, Celia Dawson and Alan Buttershaw are both widowed and in their 70s. They were attracted to each other in the 1950s, but never expressed their feelings, and Celia moved away with her parents. In the present day, they are reunited after being persuaded to join Facebook by their respective grandchildren. Alan has loved Celia since he was 16 years old, whilst Celia is described as a woman who is "unfulfilled" and was unhappily married to a man she grew to hate. After their reunion, Alan and Celia discover that they still feel as passionately for each other as they did when they were teenagers. Their story is described as a "testament of the uplifting power of love at any age".
Alan and Celia's romance is depicted alongside the troubles of their own grown-up daughters, and the series often portrays the extended family as both dark and comical in its themes. Alan's daughter, Gillian, and Celia's daughter, Caroline, are complete opposites: widowed Gillian runs a farm and works part time in a supermarket, whilst Oxford-educated Caroline is the head of an esteemed private school. Their parents' engagement affects both daughters' lives. Gillian wonders how she and her son will cope without her father around to help, whilst Caroline, struggling with depression, an ongoing divorce and her feelings for a female colleague, feels that her mother's unconventional romance gives her "permission to finally admit to being who she really is".
Characters
Main cast
Derek Jacobi as Alan Buttershaw Anne Reid as Celia Dawson Sarah Lancashire as Caroline McKenzie-Dawson Nicola Walker as Gillian Greenwood Tony Gardner as John Elliot Dean Andrews as Robbie Nina Sosanya as Kate McKenzie
Recurring cast Ronni Ancona as Judith Tyzack Louis Greatorex as Lawrence Elliot Edward Ashley (series 1–2) and Dean Smith (series 3–5) as William Elliot Josh Bolt as Raff Greenwood Katherine Rose Morley as Ellie Paul Copley as Harry Sacha Dhawan as Paul Marcus Garvey as Greg Rupert Graves as Gary
Production
Concept and writing The series is based on lead writer Sally Wainwright's personal experiences. She described it as "the most personal thing I've ever written". Her mother, Dorothy, lost contact with a childhood friend, Alec Walker, when she was 15, but they reconnected on the social networking website Friends Reunited 60 years later, and within six months were married. When she told the story to her colleague Nicola Shindler, Shindler suggested she turn her experience into a television series. Shindler became the series' executive producer.
Through Caroline, the series explores various LGBT themes. A source of contention for Celia is her daughter entering into a same sex relationship and later coming out to her. Anne Reid spoke positively of the storyline, stating that she believes a lot of people of her own generation are homophobic. She felt that her own character "might show them [and] might change them" just as Celia must become more accepting to avoid losing Alan. Jacobi concurred: Alan has "a streak of tolerance in him ... that perhaps Celia doesn't". In series three, the division between Celia and Caroline widens after Celia refuses to attend Caroline's wedding to her girlfriend. Wainwright felt that killing off Caroline's partner, Kate, would be the most effective way to propel the drama onwards and to develop the emotional lives of the remaining characters – however 'killing the lesbian' is a well-known homophobic film trope. She was conflicted over this decision, having grown attached to the character of Kate and actress Nina Sosanya, and wrote two versions of the fourth episode; the unaired one would have seen Kate survive.
Characters and casting
Discussing the casting of Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid, Wainwright stated: "we went for the best and we got them". The Guardian felt that one of the series' successes was the unlikely casting of a "theatrical knight" (Jacobi) and a "TV Stalwart" (Reid).
Jacobi was surprised to be offered the role of Alan; as his reputation centred on parts that were either "posh", "classical" or "costume". He enjoyed having the chance to play someone who is "an ordinary fellow". He also felt the series provided a chance to depict a "love story between two older characters that isn't patronising or stereotyped in any way". Jacobi also influenced the creative process—after Reid discovered Jacobi could jive, they implored Wainright to include a dance scene in an episode. Jacobi also inspired a scene in which two of Alan's friends (played by Roy Barraclough and Paul Copley) vie to be his best man. A teenage version of Alan is portrayed in flashback by Nico Mirallegro.
Reid was Wainwright's personal choice for the role of Celia. Reid hoped that Last Tango in Halifax would "give hope to older people". Reid identified herself with Celia's personality—believing herself to be quite reckless and outgoing—though stated that unlike her character she has no desire to enter another relationship. Reid described filming the series as "one of the best times in my career" and stated that she was proud of the work put in. Amelia Young plays a teenage Celia during a flashback sequence in episode six. Lancashire discerned that the series was "very special" within reading two pages of the script. Other factors that persuaded her to commit to the series included the casting of Reid and Jacobi, and the series' juxtaposition of a heart-warming story with elements of humour. In terms of her character, Lancashire identified with Caroline being "a working woman trying to keep everything under control". She stated the series' ensemble cast was "the closest I’ve come to being in a theatre company on television" due to how well the actors worked together.
The cast had all assumed that Last Tango in Halifax would run for only one series. Filming of the second series clashed with filming of the second series of the BBC One period drama The Paradise, which also starred Sarah Lancashire. This necessitated her having to leave her role in The Paradise halfway through the second series in order to reprise her role as Caroline in Last Tango in Halifax. In an interview in 2013 Lancashire stated that the decision to return to Last Tango in Halifax was the easiest she had made in her working life, stating "as an actor you can wait an entire career to be involved in a project like this."
The role resulted in her receiving the most fan mail of her career. Lancashire was surprised and humbled by the responses from women stating that Caroline's same-sex relationship had personally inspired them. She stated that in her approach to the character she did not focus on Caroline's sexuality but the "humanity of her". Due to the under-representation of gay characters on television, Lancashire felt it particularly important that Caroline's experience would not be portrayed inaccurately. In 2014 Wainwright recalled being "blown away" by Lancashire's performances in the rushes for the series, which partly inspired her to write the script for the series Happy Valley, in which Lancashire plays the lead role.
Nicola Walker completes the main cast as Gillian. She admired the character's honesty, bravery, and lack of self-pity and identified strongly with her tendency to speak before thinking things through and her deep love for her father. In 2014 The Daily Telegraph described the role as a "game-changer" in the trajectory of Walker's career. Though ultimately successful in winning the role, Walker initially believed that she would not get the part owing to a lack of confidence in her northern accent and the presence of northern actresses in the audition. Her approach to the character saw her delve into Gillian's psychology, with Walker particularly interested in the contradiction between Gillian's sexual confidence and her use of sex as a form of self-punishment. She felt the series showed a very adult approach to storytelling, stating that she had "never come across a character like Gillian before" and praising the variety of strong female roles.
The Independent noted the significance of the series having three female leads over the age of 40, stating that this, alongside Caroline's lesbian storyline and Gillian's attitude towards sex, made the series "quietly subversive" when compared with prime-time television as a whole.
In addition to its main characters, Last Tango in Halifax features a regular supporting cast. Nina Sosanya plays Caroline's romantic partner, Kate, whom she decides to marry over the course of the series. Gerard Gilbert of The Independent describes the relationship between the couple as "one of the most normalised lesbian relationships ever shown on the small screen." Nina Sosanya noted that she enjoyed filming with Sarah Lancashire and that the pair would "giggle a lot like completely juvenile idiots" whilst filming their love scenes.
Other characters introduced in the first series include Caroline's ex-husband, John (Tony Gardner), and his lover, Judith (Ronni Ancona), Gillian's brother-in-law, Robbie (Dean Andrews), and Paul (Sacha Dhawan), a young man with whom Gillian has a sexual relationship. Josh Bolt plays Gillian's son, Raff, whilst Edward Ashley and Louis Greatorex play Caroline's teenage sons, William and Lawrence. The second series expanded the families of Alan and Celia. Timothy West appears as Alan's brother, Ted, whilst Gemma Jones plays Celia's sister, Muriel. The third series later introduces Rupert Graves as Gary, who is revealed to be Alan's illegitimate son, and Michelle Hurst as Kate's mother, Ginika.
Filming The first series was filmed in Yorkshire and in Altrincham between January and April 2012. Altrincham was used to represent scenes set in Harrogate, including those set at Caroline's house. The second series began filming in July 2013, with filming taking place at Holdsworth House in Halifax and Hoghton Tower, a fortified manor house in Lancashire, in August 2013. Students from the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York worked on the series as extras during September 2013. Filming for the third series began in Yorkshire and at Peover Hall near Knutsford, Cheshire, in July 2014. Filming for the fifth and final series was underway in October 2019.
In November 2017, explaining why the series had no starting date for filming its next series, a BBC spokesperson said "Sally [Wainwright] is presently engaged with another BBC project, but has every intention of revisiting Last Tango when she is able to." Wainwright's new period drama series, Gentleman Jack, was scheduled to air on BBC One in April 2019, and she was also working on a third series of Happy Valley.
Episodes
Series overview
Broadcast audiences