Happy Valley Series 3: Sarah Lancashire rules herself out of third season: ‘It’s the end of the story’

All over? Sarah Lancashire has ruled herself out of a third series of Happy Vallley
BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall
Jennifer Ruby21 March 2016

Sarah Lancashire has ruled out making a third series of Happy Valley.

Despite the popularity of the gritty BBC drama, the lead actress has admitted that she's not keen to reprise the role.

While screenwriter Sally Wainwright recently hinted that there could be a third series of the show, it seems that they might have to cast a new star.

Speaking to the Daily Mail, Lancashire said: “It’s the end of the story for Happy Valley.

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“I wouldn’t want it to go to a third series, I really wouldn’t – then it becomes something else. We set out to tell a story and we have told it.”

She added: “The temptation is you see something that is great and you think, ‘this can run and run and run’, but then it becomes a homogenised, diluted thing.”

Speaking to BBC Breakfast just last week, writer Wainwight suggested that there would be another series but that viewers ‘might have to wait’.

“I’m so busy with other projects at the moment, I haven't got time to sit down and come up with stories,” she said.

The second series of the show, which co-stars James Norton, proved just as popular as the first, drawing an average audience of 7.5 million.

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