Happy Valley season 3: Show creator reveals surprisingly simple reason for hiatus

The Bafta-winning BBC cop drama was last seen on screens in 2016

Happy Valley fans have been waiting a long time for the Bafta-winning cop drama to return to screens – and it turns out there’s been a very simple reason for the show’s hiatus all along.

Screenwriter Sally Wainwright has revealed that in order to tell the story she wants to in series three, young actor Rhys Connah (who plays Ryan Cawood, grandson of Sarah Lancashire’s lead character Catherine) needs to get older.

Wainwright told RadioTimes.com: “Basically, we’re kind of waiting for the little boy to grow up, so he’s more of a teenager than a child.” Connah was only eight years old when the drama began.

According to Wainwright, there was always going to be a long gap between series two and three: “That’s always been the plan,” she said. “We never intended to do it again straight away, so it kind of hopefully is going to work out nicely time-wise.”

Wainwright has a very busy schedule, which has also contributed to the delay in writing series three of Happy Valley. The writer recently finished penning a new series of Last Tango in Halifax and will next be working on a second run of Gentleman Jack.

On whether Gentleman Jack is going to take precedence over a new series of Happy Valley, Wainwright said: “It is at the moment, yes, it is. But then I hope to get back onto Happy Valley three.”

She added: “We’ve got lots of strands and story ideas…”