A new drama filmed in Dewsbury has been given a prime time slot on BBC One.
The six-part Love, Lies and Records will be broadcast on Thursday, November 16 from 9pm-10pm and weekly thereafter.
Film crews used Dewsbury Town Hall, its Register Office, foyers, function rooms and main concert hall during filming from March to June.
It’s focused on the life of registrar Kate Dickenson (Ashley Jensen, of Ugly Betty and Extras fame).
She said it was refreshing to work on a show that addresses life’s imperfections. In her case, a partner and demanding teenagers versus the drama of births, marriages and deaths.
It has been penned by Kay Mellor, the BAFTA award-winning writer behind hits such as Fat Friends.
The actress described her character’s role as: “It’s the working mum thing.
“It’s the whole, ‘I’m doing a job and I want to do it to the best of my ability, but I’m also someone’s mum and I’m also someone’s wife’, which a lot of women do. It’s a reflection on society.
“It’s interesting, somebody asked me the other day about reality television. I have to admit I don’t [watch it], but they said: ‘Don’t you think it is a reflection of the society that we live in?’
“And I said: ‘No, I don’t really, because I think quite a lot of it seems, to me, contrived and a little bit forced.’
“But that’s what I think good British drama does. When it’s written as brilliantly as the stuff that Kay writes, it’s holding up a mirror to society and hopefully people can tap into that and understand it rather than ‘I’m A Celeb...”
Jensen praises Mellor for scratching beneath the surface when it comes to people and their passions, stating “there’s no baddies and no goodies, it’s just about truth.”
The cast includes the likes of Adrian Bower, Kenny Doughty, Rebecca Front and Mark Stanley.
Praising the registrars she met she says: “I suppose, like Kate, I would get very much involved with everybody’s story [if I did her job].”
She keeps her Scottish accent in the programme, adding: “I could have done a Leeds accent, but I think there is kind of no need, really. We live in such a cosmopolitan world, every city has got people from all over the place.”
Yorkshire-born Kay Mellor got the idea for Loves, Lies and Records while registering the death of her mother, saying: “When I was waiting to register the death of my mother at Leeds Town Hall, I was next to a couple who were waiting to register the birth of their much wanted baby girl.
“Later on that week, I attended the wedding of some friends of ours. I realised that the register office was a microcosm of life itself – tears, laughter and celebrations.
“Not long after, a series started to develop in my head.”
