In Wakefield...

Back in the 1960s This Sporting Life seemed to be a remarkably tough and uncompromising film. 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. The always excellent Alan Badel plays Weaver, the club¹s major shareholder.

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 The film was critically acclaimed but the 'swinging' sixties had begun and its themes of class and society now seemed out of date.

If you know of any productions, whether for the large or small screen, filmed in Wakefield or elsewhere in West Yorkshire and want to tell us about them then please get in touch. Email: westyorkshire @bbc.co.uk

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. Here, we have the wife of Batley, not of Bath.

Plater also wrote the Biederbeck Affair, a popular and quirky romantic drama series which used locations around the city and starred James Bolam and Barbara Flynn. Some of us still don't understand what was going on in that allotment!

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