James Norton has nothing but praise for Sarah Lancashire in the third and final season of Happy Valley.
The actress, 64, who plays Sergeant Catherine Cawood in the hit BBC show set in West Yorkshire, will reprise the role when it comes back after seven years in 2023.
Season two of Happy Valley aired on BBC One in 2016. The final season will contain six episodes, just as the first two seasons did.
Writer Sally Wainwright, who has written for Emmerdale and Coronation Street, as well as Last Tango in Halifax, will continue to pen the series.
The show will return on New Years Day 2023 with Sergeant Cawood discovering the remains of a gangland murder victim in a drained reservoir.
This leads her back to her nemesis from the first two seasons, the murderer and sex offender Tommy Lee Royce, played by Norton.
Norton, 37, described the final season as a ‘must see’ as Lancashire is an ‘absolute legend in our industry, giving the performance of her life’.
He continued, saying it was a ‘very proud moment’ when he went to the United States and people told him they loved the show.
‘I think it’s such a specific show about the very specific part of England, and you know the accents and the temperaments and sensibilities of those characters are quite specific to the area,’ he added.
Norton said the ending ‘does not disappoint’ and will see his character seven years later ‘still in prison serving multiple life sentences’.
He also teased that Royce, who spent season two behind bars, has ‘information about something we don’t know about yet’.
The police drama, which won the Bafta for best drama series in 2015, will also see Clare Cartwright (Siobhan Finneran) and Ryan (Rhys Connah) return to the story.
In the final season, Ryan is now 16. Still living with Cawood, he has ideas of his own about what kind of relationship he wants to have with Royce.
Happy Valley returns at 9pm on January 1 2023 on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
