Stonehouse; Happy Valley

“The tone is spot-on, tongue-in-cheek and cheeky. The brief rise, and astonishing fall, of John Stonehouse makes for enormously entertaining television.”
Rebecca Nicholson, The Guardian

“I have seen all three episodes and it’s an absolute treat. Stonehouse is just the lifter we needed in the post-Christmas bloat. We’re only three days into 2023, but already, in Matthew Macfadyen and Sarah Lancashire in Happy Valley, we have two strong contenders for performance of the year.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“You know what you’re going to get with Stonehouse from the opening five minutes. The music is jaunty. Matthew Macfadyen appears looking slightly ridiculous in a powder blue suit. We’re set up for an entertaining caper that refuses to take its story too seriously. Macfadyen is so good at characters like this – hubristic, duplicitous and ridiculous – that it is a treat to watch him try to scheme and bluff his way through Stonehouse’s misadventures. His comic timing is perfect.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“This three-part drama is jauntily tongue-in-cheek, it’s played for fun and giggles, with a bouncing foxtrot soundtrack straight out of Jeeves and Wooster. That’s something of a missed opportunity, because Mrs Stonehouse is played by Macfadyen’s real-life wife, Keeley Hawes. Together, they could have delivered an excoriating portrait of a political marriage: the unspoken blackmail, the delicate balance of power, like two little dancers revolving on a music box packed with dynamite. None of that is attempted here.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“If Stonehouse didn’t have the depth of A Very English Scandal, it trundled along breezily enough in a mildly farcical manner, with Ralfe Kent’s jauntily jazzy score helping set the tone.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i

“By the end of the first episode, all the narrative pieces are in play – from the drug plots, to the Hepworths’ private misery, via a shattering revelation for Catherine that would undo a lesser woman. The warp and weft of lives, of life, is as expertly woven as ever and you couldn’t wish for a better group of actors to bring it to you.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“Catherine Cawood is still one of television’s finest creations, played so brilliantly by Sarah Lancashire that we should just hand her the Bafta now and have done with it. And Sally Wainwright remains the best writer in Britain, with such a sure grasp of character, place and plot that this series simply can’t be faulted.”
Anita Singh, The Telegraph

“Writer and director Sally Wainwright’s beautifully taut script, without a word wasted, constantly underlines Sergeant Cawood’s most important quality – her experience. As a grandparent, as a veteran copper, as a pillar of her community, she brings a strength that cannot be achieved through shortcuts.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail

“It has been a long seven-year wait for Sally Wainwright’s BBC drama, and Lancashire’s endlessly resilient Sergeant Catherine Cawood, to return and god, it is good to have them back on our screens. It has retained everything that made it so brilliant – provocative storytelling with a genuine edge, lived-in relationships between characters that feel completely real and one of the most repellent villains in TV history.”
Rachel Sigee, The i

“Viewers nervous that Wainwright and Co might fail to recapture the Yorkshire magic – which made the show such a dark delight – need not have worried. This final spin over the moors is a worthy way to round out one of British television’s greatest sagas.”
Nick Hilton, The Independent