Last Tango In Halifax

Warm, romantic and BAFTA-winning, Last Tango In Halifax was a bona-fide hit last year, neatly refuting the idea that there's no audience for "stuff about old people" on TV.

It's even getting an American remake with Diane Keaton. So it's no surprise that it has quickly been brought back, nor, given that much of its strength lies in its near real-time pace, that the story resumes moments later.

Yet pacing might prove to be an issue this year, as the reunited sweethearts Alan and Celia (Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid) are now an established couple. Having missed 60 years together, they have surely too much sense to fall out again over minor misunderstandings. Their respective daughters (Nicola Walker and Sarah Lancashire) are still entangled in complicated love lives, but this can't really take over the focus of the series from the older generation. So where will the drama lie?

In the first episode, this isn't really resolved, as Alan recovers from his health scare and Celia organises their wedding, while the younger characters continue to flail. But it's still such a warm and well-observed show - with lovely bits of dialogue and performances - that maybe it doesn't matter.

Last Tango's Anne Reid: 'Sex on TV is voyeurism'

As Last Tango in Halifax returns for a new series, its star Anne Reid tells Rachel Ward how Facebook frightens her and why 'sexing up' the hit drama would ruin it.

Last Tango In Halifix series 2 preview

I am not one who would normally look forward to BBC dramas, but this really is something to put in the diary.

Sarah Lancashire interview

Last Tango In Halifax earned the Oldham-born Sarah Lancashire a BAFTA-nomination last year and the show itself a clutch more awards nominations, as well as becoming a ratings winner for the beeb.

The Conversation: Last Tango in Halifax star Annie Reid

On getting naked with Daniel Craig and writing letters to Woody Allen.

Diane Keaton plans US remake of Last Tango in Halifax

The star has acquired the rights to the BBC One hit about childhood sweethearts rekindling their romance in their 70s.

The Last Tango in Halifax effect

"Older people in dramas are no longer merely endearingly dotty characters who exist solely for their comic possibilities"

Anne Reid: 'It will be hard to live up to 1st series'

The actress who played Celia in the hit BBC drama says she hopes the second run can be as "phenomenally successful" as the first/

Last Tango in Halifax (BBC One) was very simply plotted, although, in contrast to a drama like The Town, writer Sally Wainwright's dialogue tended towards the emotionally incontinent.

"Why can't you accept that I want to be with Kate, that I am old enough to make my own decisions, and to accept it and be civilised about it?" wailed Sarah Lancashire's lesbian headmistress Caroline as she tried to drag her mother Celia (Anne Reid) into the 21st century.

A few scenes later and Celia had had a change of heart, declaring that she had "played hardball long enough" (perhaps the only 75 year-old in Britain to have ever used that term) and was ready to accept her daughter "for who she was" having been "on the road to Damascus".

Last Tango in Halifax was sometimes silly and two episodes too long. But it was that difficult beast, a comedy drama, and for all its faults could sometimes be both funny (any scene involving Tony Gardner as John, Caroline's feckless, needy ex-husband) and dramatic (any scene involving Derek Jacobi's Alan).

Pensioner Alan's late-blossoming courtship of Celia, his first love, was touching and the power came from Jacobi's understated performance. This theatrical knight has played many fascinating, complex men (Richard II, Francis Bacon, Alan Turing) but I have never seen him play ordinary. Often, great actors fail when they try to be the everyman; thwarted by their own heavyweight presence. But Jacobi as Alan achieved much by doing very little. Just by sitting in front of the Aga and sipping his tea thoughtfully, he vividly portrayed a kind, unremarkable man who had looked at life from atop his West Yorkshire farmhouse, and after three quarters of a century, had worked out its deepest mysteries. Amid the drama's silly theatrics of cheating spouses, concupiscent toyboys and alcoholic screw-ups, Jacobi added some much-needed depth.

The series has been a ratings success and will return next year when the grand and sometimes unlikeable Celia will prepare to walk down the aisle to The Entrance of the Queen of Sheba. Let's hope no pesky TV producer introduces an unfathomable story arc that will prevent her from getting her wish.

Last Tango In Halifax was a drama with heart to spare

It's not the sort of show that wins awards but it would be a crime if Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi didn't get the chance to dust off their thank you speeches on the back of Last Tango In Halifax (BBC1).