Actress Sarah Lancashire receives OBE at Palace
HAPPY Valley star Sarah Lancashire said she was thrilled and “slightly speechless” after receiving the OBE.
The former Coronation Street star, 53, received the accolade for services to drama from the Duke of Cambridge at Buckingham Palace yesterday.
Ms Lancashire, whose three children watched her receive her award, said she had been nervous because “I don’t do things like this very easily”.
She said: “I think it is an emotional moment.
“I wish my father had been alive. I think at times like this, really, one tends to focus on parents and my father would have been the proudest man in the world.”
She added: “It’s very difficult because you are in these most spectacular surroundings and you are trying desperately to take it all in but your head is full of white noise because you don’t want to fall over when you curtsey. “It’s wonderful.” The Oldham-raised Baftawinning actress has enjoyed a career spanning four decades.
She has starred in popular television programmes, such as Corrie, where she played Raquel Wolstenholme.
More recently she has gained critical acclaim in roles in drama series, including comedy-drama Last Tango in Halifax and crime drama Happy Valley.
Both shows were written by Sally Wainwright.
Ms Lancashire added she has intentions to return to both Tango and Happy Valley.
“Happy Valley is unfinished business so we have to go back and finish that off. And Tango is always a delight.”
One of her next on-screen projects will be the “dark” Channel 4 drama Kiri in the new year.