Happy Valley star Sarah Lancashire: From humble beginnings to Britain’s ‘Meryl Streep’

Sarah Lancashire graced our TV screens last night as matriarch Sergeant Catherine Cawood in the opening episode of the third and final series of Happy Valley.

The highly anticipated return of Sally Wainwright’s riveting police drama was rewarded with five-star reviews as viewers rejoiced that “Sarah Lancashire is back on our screens”.

Set in West Yorkshire’s Calder Valley, her character plays a no-nonsense police officer who fights crime in her community while battling her own demons.

The multi-award-winning show has garnered legions of adoring fans across Lancashire, some comparing her to Britain’s Meryl Streep, others have hailed Catherine Cawood as “the greatest female character to ever walk on television”.

Sarah Lancashire graced our TV 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 the Coronation Street soap, where she played the dizzying barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme from 1991 to 1996

Lancashire rose to fame as a national treasure on the Coronation Street soap, where she played the dizzying barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme from 1991 to 1996

She has appeared in Where is The Heart, Last Tango in Halifax, Kiri, The Accident and most recently as TV chef Julia Child on the HBO series Julia.

But the Oldham-born actress, 58, came from humble beginnings and before her “big break” in acting, she starred in local theater productions and worked as an acting coach to support herself financially before jobs.

Her father Geoffrey, born in 1964, was a television screenwriter and her mother Hilda worked as his personal assistant.

Sarah Lancashire stars alongside Billy Connolly in Gentleman’s Relish.

Sarah Lancashire as TV chef and writer Julia Child on the HBO series Julia

As a teenager, Lancashire had little interest in acting and originally set out to work behind the scenes on television.

At the age of 18 she won a place at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where her passion for acting was sparked.

She graduated in 1986 and – after being rejected by several repertory theaters – got her first role from Howard Lloyd-Lewis, director of the Manchester Library Theater Company.

She acted in two plays – Pacific Overtures and The Beauty Game – and described that period as “the beginning of my acting career.”

Sarah Lancashire played Polly Bevan in Channel 4’s four-part series The Accident

Despite her aspirations to make it big, she found gaps between theater performances early in her career and worked as an acting teacher to stay afloat financially.

But things should change. In 1990, Lancashire had her “big break” with the role of Linda in a production of Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers at the Albery Theater in London’s West End.

Two weeks after that Following her run in Blood Brothers, Lancashire auditioned for the role of Raquel Wolstenhulme on Coronation Street, where she co-starred with supermarket clerk 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 stint as a model, her character became the much-loved dizzying barmaid of Rover’s Return – and had a failed romance with Weatherfield’s resident Lothario Des Barnes.

She married Curly and became Raquel Watts but left him in 1996 to pursue one Aromatherapy job in Kuala Lumpur.

Following her departure 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 delight of viewers, she returned to Weatherfield one last time as Raquel 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) on Coronation Street in 1994

Happy Valley won a Bafta for Best Drama and Lancashire for Best Actress in 2017

That same year, ITV secured Sarah’s exclusivity with a ‘golden handcuffs’ deal, which meant she was only allowed to star in ITV productions for two years. Sarah was the first actress to land this deal with ITV and the £1.3million deal made Sarah the highest paid actress on British television.

In the years since her ITV deal, she has acted in numerous plays and films including Wuthering Heights and Doctor Who.

When Happy Valley first hit the big screen, the show was an instant hit, captivating more than eight million viewers and winning Baftas for Best Drama and Best Screenplay.

Sergeant Catherine Cawood is raising her grandson Ryan after the suicide of her daughter Becky and must protect him from his birth father, local villain Tommy Lee Royce, played by McMafia star James Norton.

Almost seven years after the end of the previous Happy Valley series, Sarah Lancashire’s grandmother is still holding back the tide of drugs and violence in her West Yorkshire town.

She’ll no doubt be raking in more accolades by the end of the six-part series, and her portrayal of Catherine Cawood has also garnered her a loyal following across the pond after the show streamed on Netflix in the US.

Lancashire rose to fame as a national treasure on the Coronation Street soap, where she played the dizzying barmaid Raquel Wolstenhulme from 1991 to 1996

James Norton (pictured) plays local villain Tommy Lee Royce on the hit BBC show Sarah Lancashire.

Three series of Happy Valley were always planned, with one and two airing just two years apart.

Wainwright and Lancashire always planned a gap between final series – to give characters time to grow – but much to viewers’ frustration, the Covid-19 pandemic added another year to the wait.

The opening of Happy Valley’s final series, which aired on New Year’s Day, was hailed for recapturing the magic of the “revolutionary” program as it consistently received five-star reviews.