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In Calderdale...

Calderdale would now seem to be THE popular place to make films. Gibson Mill at Hardcastle Crags was recently transformed into the grim Dotheboys Hall for a big-screen version of the Dickens classic Nicholas Nickleby. Oscar winner Jim Broadbent, Juliet Stevenson and Jamie 'Billy Elliot' Bell were among the actors involved in the project.

Scene from A Day Out

The best-known film of recent years to feature Halifax was very definitely set in South Yorkshire. In Brassed Off the Grimley Colliery Brass Band, with a little help from members of the real-life Grimethorpe Band, travel to Halifax's Piece Hall to take part in the regional heats of the National Brass Band competition. Star Tara Fitzgerald certainly did not hide her feelings about Grimethorpe but we have no idea what she thought of Halifax. The Piece Hall has featured in many other films over the years including The Dresser and Room At The Top.

The 1979 film Yanks, starring Richard Gere (below) and Vanessa Redgrave filmed at Southowram Bank and the 1991 version of Wuthering Heights also used Shibden Hall as a location.

Todmorden has featured in many television productions, including the long-running 1980s police series Juliet Bravo and drama series Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit. The latter was based on the award-winning novel by Jeanette Winterson telling the story of a young girl raised in a repressive Pentecostal home by an overpowering mother. When Jess, the girl, leaves the fire and brimstone of home at the age of 16 she falls in love with a young woman. The part of Jess was played by the actress Charlotte Coleman (below) who sadly died suddenly in 2001.

Television crews have also been in Todmorden to film the BBC's darkly hilarious comedy The League Of Gentlemen.

Scene from Sparkhouse

One of the most memorable of the dramas filmed for the small screen over the years is A Day Out, made in 1972 and written by West Yorkshire's very own Alan Bennett. It features a group of cyclists who, in 1911, leave the soot and smoke of Halifax behind them to go for a day's bike ride in the country. One of the cyclists finds it difficult to keep up because of a disability. At the end of the film this cyclist visits a war memorial inscribed with the names of his fellow cyclists.

Then, in 2002, the BBC's drama series Sparkhouse was filmed around Hebden Bridge and set in present day Yorkshire, but based on Emile Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Written by Sally Wainwright of At Home with the Braithwaites fame and starring Sarah Smart, Joe McFadden, Alun Armstrong, Celia Imrie and Nicholas Farell, it was the classic tale with a twist - the roles of Cathy and Heathcliff are reversed!

Finally, and right up to date, top comedian and Doctor Who assistant Catherine Tate can now be added to the list of stars who've headed onto the big screen via West Yorkshire. Tate stars in the title role in Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution, a 2007 film which tells the story of a most unusual journey - from Bingley to East Germany and back during the Cold War! As always, West Yorkshire's one of the stars - most of the filming, despite being supposedly Bingley-based, was done in and around Halifax. 

In Kirklees...

It sometimes seems that you can't travel around the valleys around Huddersfield without falling over television crews!

Last of the Summer wine

For nearly thirty years Last of the Summer Wine has been something of a showcase for the Holme and Colne Valleys and has also served to put Holmfirth firmly on the tourist map. Bill Owen who played Compo made the area his second home and is buried in nearby Upperthong. The pub featured in the series is the White Horse Inn in Jackson Bridge.

It ís a very different group of villagers that feature in The League of Gentlemen. Although most of the filming has taken place in Derbyshire some believe the series is actually about Marsden folk. Scenes were filmed around Holmfirth and Marsden - many a walker has been surprised to see the set for the 'Local Shop' up on the moor.

You don't have to be much of a detective to realise that the fictional Skelthwaite (Where The Heart Is) is actually Slaithwaite. The health centre is in Marsden and the hospital shots are, we think, Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. Marsden also became Wokenwell in the police series of the same name with the tiny Sair Inn in Linthwaite playing the part of the local pub.

Historic: Holmfirth Picturedrome

Thornton Lodge in Huddersfield was used in an advert for an insurance company a few years ago, and Dewsbury has featured in Emmerdale, The Darling Buds of May and A Touch of Frost.

While Oakwell Hall was used as a film location as long ago as 1921, for a silent version of Charlotte Bronte's Shirley, we need to go back to Holmfirth to find out where it all began. It was here that the Bamforths used to produce their famous saucy seaside postcards but before this they made movies using local people as actors. They showed these at the Valley Cinema - now the Picturedrome.

In Wakefield...

Back in the 1960s the film This Sporting Life seemed to be remarkably tough and uncompromising. It was shot around Wakefield and, in particular, Wakefield Trinity Rugby League Club. The film tells the story of Frank Machin, a young and ambitious coal miner, who is on his way up as a rugby league star. Richard Harris, who plays Machin, has said he considers this to be his finest role. He certainly gives a powerful and convincing performance. Rachel Roberts is also unforgettable as Machin's widowed landlady with whom he has a futile affair.

This Sporting Life: Wakefield Trinity

Based on a novel by David Storey who had grown up in Wakefield, and directed by Lindsay Anderson, this was the last of the gritty northern dramas which had begun (in film at least) with Room at the Top. The film was critically acclaimed but the 'swinging' sixties had begun and its themes of class and society now seemed out of date

Rugby League was also the setting for Alan Plater's Trinity Tales, first transmitted in 1975. This was an updating of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Six fans from a West Yorkshire rugby league club travel to Wembley for the Challenge Cup Final and pass the time by telling stories. Plater also wrote the Beiderbecke Affair, a popular and quirky romantic drama series which used locations around the city and starred James Bolam and Barbara Flynn.

And, finally, Emmerdale's courtroom scenes are filmed in Wakefield Town Hall!

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