In excess

Judging from its website, Hebden Bridge’s tourist office considers the fact that BBC1’s Happy Valley is filmed in the town something of a selling point. Personally, I can’t see why. (Perhaps points of especial tourist interest might include the cellar where Sergeant Catherine Cawood was almost battered to death, or the caravan site where drug dealers fed heroin to the teenage girl they’d kidnapped and raped.) And now that it’s back for a second series, viewers of Sally Wainwright’s Bafta-winning drama are still unlikely to confuse Hebden Bridge with, say, Chipping Norton.

In Tuesday’s opening scene Catherine (Sarah Lancashire) filled in her sister on the events of her day. ‘Three lads out of their head on acid,’ she chuckled wearily, stole a sheep from a local farm, and, after it was mauled by the dogs on the housing estate, she had to finish it off with a rock to the head.

But naturally the programme didn’t remain that light-hearted for long. Soon afterwards, Catherine discovered the decomposing corpse of a woman who’d been sexually abused with a broken bottle and then strangled. Not only that, but the dead woman was Lynn Dewhurst, mother of Tommy Lee Royce, series one’s psycho-in-chief — who, in a characteristic Happy Valley twist, is also the father of Catherine’s grandson Ryan, having raped her daughter, who committed suicide shortly after the birth. As a result, Catherine’s earlier threats about what she’d do if Lynn didn’t keep away from Ryan briefly made her a suspect — until it became clear there’s a serial killer about.

For some drama series, this might be enough to be going on with for now. Happy Valley, though, has never been a show to leave fans of the crunching storyline feeling short-changed.