Happy Valley is a BBC drama, was aired in April 2014. 

I remember watching this in my student halls, stitching together one of my many comfort blankets I was making for an installation. The show soon became the highlight of my week and the prospect of a second season has got me very excited.

The backstory of the first series is, a police sergeant’s daughter Becky Cawood was brutally raped by Tommy Lee Royce and as a result of the rape fell pregnant, six weeks after the birth of the child she hung herself.

The first episode starts eight years after the above event happened, displaying how the family had fallen apart as a result of the suicide. Tommy Lee Royce had been newly released from prison, not for the rape as you might have assumed but for a drug deal gone wrong. He knows nothing of the child or the suicide and is adamant that he did not rape Becky.

Throughout the series there is a kidnapping that spirals out of control, Yorkshire police sergeant Catherine Cawood later comes face to face with the man who had destroyed her family, Tommy Lee Royce.

So much happens within the show it would be impossible for me to write about it all in just one small post. I can only highly recommend you to watch the first series before you tune in tonight.

The level of acting is beyond incredible. You may recognize James Norton who is currently staring in the BBC adaptation of War and Peace, which is aired on Sunday at 9pm. In War and Peace he plays the charming Prince Andrei Bolkonsky who has been compared to a Russian Mr Darcy, as you can imagine I am also in love with that show too, but lets not go too far off track…Happy Valley. James Norton plays the psychopathic Tommy Lee Royce a polar opposite to War and Peace’s Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, you’ll have to watch the show yourself and come to your own conclusion.

 Tommy Lee Royce

Prince Andrei Bolkonsky

 I think it is safe to say I am beyond excited to watch the very first episode of Season 2, which will be aired Tuesday 9^th February on BBC1 at 9pm, or you can catch it on the BBC iplayer.

Life

Life. A single word title, it sadly doesn’t give much away. To be perfectly honest this film would have passed me by with a blink of an eye.

The cases imagery of two men walking in front of a brash blue and white background hardly makes it an enticing buy and lets face it, showcasing Robert Pattinson as a leading man doesn’t make me grab the film off the shelf with a sense of uncountable excitement.

But with all that said I had heard about this film a while ago, a story based upon the friendship of photographer Dennis Stock and James Dean (if you do not know who James Dean is then shame on you!!). From and artists perspective I was intrigued and hoped and prayed that the portrayal of the main characters would be up to a considerable standard.

A loose description of the film without giving away any spoilers would be…a struggling photographer (Dennis Stock) is trying to make his break away from red carpet snap shots and becomes intrigued with an up and coming actor (James Dean) he sees the potential impact this young man is going to have on the future of movies and is determined to have a shoot with him. Once given the go ahead on a new assignment to shoot Dean for a spread in Life Magazine the journey of frustration, creativity and eventually friendship begins.

Ultimately this film was very slow to begin with and it took me a while to be convinced by Pattinson’s performance as Dennis Stock. In my opinion a good actor needs to be able to convince their audience that they are not ‘pretending’ from the moment they are seen on screen or stage. Sadly this could not be said for Pattinson’s performance but please bare with him, within 15 minutes or so of the film my opinion changed, it was as if he himself became more comfortable with the character with every minute. Although he should have portrayed this from the opening credits by the end of the film you forget about all the awkward unknowing displayed at the beginning. Dane DeHaan who played James Dean, on the other hand is an entirely different conversation. The level of acting was consistent throughout the entire film and while we the public think we know everything there is to known about James Dean, DeHaan was able to display a true tortured vulnerability of the character, which I would have never thought possible. When someone says the name James Dean, I always thought of the beautiful face, the fast cars and of course the movies. To see him portrayed is such a frustrated tortured manner is something I would not have expected.

The photographs that were produced for Life Magazine were beautiful but it was the candid shots that first caught my attention. I’ve added a few of my favourites from the shoot for you to feast your eyes upon.

I would recommend this film to any James Dean fan, but like I have previously said, it is a film you just need to bare with, it does get so much better, I promise.