Art Imitates Bolton School Life

Thursday, 06 June 2013

Filming will shortly be getting underway on Red Production Company’s second series of the BBC’s BAFTA-winning comedy drama, Last Tango in Halifax and, once again, Bolton School will be used as a backdrop. 

In the first series, starring Sarah Lancashire, the School featured as the independent school where she was Headmistress.  Filming made use of the Headmaster’s Study, the Boys' Division Great Hall, several classrooms and offices as well as corridors, which were used to represent a quality school in the comedy drama series which also stars Sir Derek Jacobi.  As a result of the unmissable building site of the School’s new Sixth Form Centre in the middle of the campus, the construction has been woven into the plot of the second series as an added responsibility in the life of a Headmistress.

The first series, which saw would-be childhood sweethearts reunited after 60 years, was a huge ratings hit when it ran on BBC One in November and December of last year. 

The school was also used as a backdrop in the 2007 critically acclaimed film The Mark of Cain, and during the 1990s for an episode of Hetty Wainthropp Investigates.