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Sarah Lancashire graced our television screens last night as matriarch Sergeant Catherine Cawood in the opening episode of the third and final series of Happy Valley.
Set in West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley, her character plays a no-nonsense police officer fighting crime in her community, while also battling her own personal demons.
The multi-award winning show has gained Lancashire legions of admiring fans, with some likening her to Britian’s Meryl Streep, with others have hailed Catherine Cawood as ‘the greatest female character to have graced television’.
Sarah Lancashire graced our television screens last night as matriarch Sergeant Catherine Cawood in the third and final series of Happy Valley
Lancashire rose to fame as a national treasure on soap Coronation Street, where she played ditzy barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme from 1991 to 1996
Lancashire rose to fame as a national treasure on soap Coronation Street, where she played ditzy barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme from 1991 to 1996
She has gone on to appear in Where is The Heart, Last Tango in Halifax, Kiri, The Accident and most recently as TV chef Julia Child in the HBO series Julia – also winning her fans across the pond.
But the Oldham-born actor, 58, came from humble beginnings, and before her ‘big break’ in acting starred in local theatre productions and worked as a drama teacher to stay afloat financially before jobs.
Born in 1964, her father Geoffrey was a TV scriptwriter and her mother Hilda worked as his personal assistant.
Sarah Lancashire starring alongside Billy Connolly in Gentleman’s Relish
Sarah Lancashire starring as TV chef and author Julia Child in the HBO series Julia
As a teenager, Lancashire had little interest in acting and originally set out to work behind the scenes in television.
At the age of 18, she won a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where her passion for acting was ignited.
She graduated in 1986 and – after being rejected from several repertory theatres – she was given her first role by Howard Lloyd-Lewis, director of the Manchester Library Theatre Company.
She starred in two plays – Pacific Overtures and the Beauty Game – describing this period as ‘the start of my career as an actor’.
Sarah Lancashire played Polly Bevan in Channel 4’s four-part series The Accident
Despite aspirations to hit the big time, during her early career she found large gaps between theatre appearances and worked as a drama teacher to stay afloat financially.
But things were about to change. In 1990 Lancashire got her ‘big break’ playing the role of Linda in a production of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers at the Albery Theatre in London’s West End.
Two weeks after finishing her run in Blood Brothers, Lancashire auditioned to play Raquel Wolstenhulme in Coronation Street, where she would star as colleague of supermarket employee Curly Watts, played by Kevin Kennedy.
Sarah Lancashire as Raquel Wolstenhulme in Corrie, with her Curly Watts (played by Kevin Kennedy)
Sarah Lancashire played social worker Miriam in Channel 4’s Kiri
After a modelling stint, her character went onto to become the much-loved ditzy barmaid of the Rover’s Return – and would go on to have a failed romance with Weatherfield’s resident lothario Des Barnes.
She went onto marry Curly becoming Raquel Watts but walked out on him in 1996 to pursue an aromatherapy job in Kuala Lumpur.
Following her exit from Corrie, Lancashire joined the cast of ITV’s Where The Heart where she played the role of district nurse Ruth Goddard.
Much to the viewers’ delight, she returned to Weatherfield as Raquel one last time in 2000 during a New Year’s special to demand a divorce from Curly so she could marry her French lover.
Lancashire as Raquel with Curly Watts (Kevin Kennedy) in Coronation Street in 1994
Happy Valley won a Bafta for best drama and Lancashire for best actress in 2017
That same year, she became the first actress to signed a £1.3 million ‘golden handcuffs’ deal with ITV, meaning that for two years she could could only star in ITV productions.
At that point, the deal made Lancashire the highest paid actress in British television.
In the years following her ITV deal, she starred in numerous plays and films, including The Bill, Wuthering Heights, Doctor Who, Gentlemen’s Relish, Skins and Dad’s Army.
When Happy Valley first hit screens in 2014, the show was an instant success, gripping more than eight million viewers and winning Baftas for Best Drama and Best Writing.
Raising her grandson Ryan after the suicide of her daughter Becky, Sergeant Catherine Cawood must keep him safe from his biological father, local villain Tommy Lee Royce, played by McMafia star James Norton.
The second series also saw Lancashire win a Bafta for best actress, and in the same year she was awarded an OBE for her services to drama.
No doubt tipped for more awards when the six-part series comes to an end, her portrayal of Catherine Cawood has also earned her a loyal fanbase across the pond after the show streamed on Netflix in the US.
Lancashire rose to fame as a national treasure on soap Coronation Street, where she played ditzy barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme from 1991 to 1996
James Norton (pictured) plays local villain Tommy Lee Royce in the hit BBC show alongshire Sarah Lancashire
Three series of Happy Valley were always planned with one and two aired just two years apart from each other.
Wainwright and Lancashire always planned for a gap between the final series – to allow time for the characters to grow – but much to viewers’ frustration the Covid-19 pandemic added another year onto the wait.
The opening of Happy Valley’s final series aired on New Year’s Day was praised for recapturing the magic of the ‘revolutionary’ programme as it garnered five-star reviews across the board.
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