Will there be more Last Tango in Halifax?

Well, some might say the two-part Christmas special leaves the door wide open for a brand-new saga featuring two of our favourite northern families.

SPOILER ALERT

Alan and Celia's turn on the stage left the duo eager to take on new and more exciting roles, with Celia suggesting Alan could be the Mark Anthony to her Cleopatra as they drove off into the sunset. Dear Sally Wainwright, we'd pay seriously good money to see Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid walk like Egyptians, so if a 90-minute one-off Easter special is all you have time for, we'll take that please.

Meanwhile Gillian (Nicola Walker) and Robbie's marriage crumbled as she finally told him the truth about the night Eddie died. Surely we can't close the door on Halifax just after she's confessed to murder? There have to be consequences, right?

Finally, we left the often thought snobbish Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) on her first day as the head teacher at a tough Huddersfield comprehensive. "Who's done this?" she asked while surveying the lopsided sign on her office door.

"Maintenance", an unassuming office worker replied, having innocently offered her new boss a donut.

“Can you ask maintenance to come back with a spirit level?”, Caroline asked. "Oh they won't like that", said her surely soon-to-be enemy. "Shall we risk it?" the super sassy head teacher finished, before heading into her office and closing the door.

If that's not proof that there's definitely another Halifax tale to tell, we don't know what is.

Has there been an official announcement about a new series of Last Tango in Halifax?

Following the end of series three, BBC1 confirmed that the drama would return for another series, revealing the good news just as the credits rolled.

You would think that that is pretty clear-cut proof of more episodes to come, but unfortunately it's been surprisingly difficult to confirm whether there will be a series four.

When RadioTimes.com contacted a spokesperson for Last Tango in Halifax, they claimed "no decision has been made" on a fourth series.

Writer Sally Wainwright's representative also confirmed to us that the Christmas special would be a "contained two-parter", but could not confirm whether there were more episodes to come.

Even if there is a series four planned, it is unlikely to happen in 2017.

Wainwright is in high demand this year: the Bafta-winning writer has a one-off period drama about the Bronte sisters called To Walk Invisible airing on 29 December on BBC1.

She has also said that her other primetime BBC1 drama, Happy Valley, will be delayed while she concentrates on a new drama project.

One of Last Tango's stars, Anne Reid, admitted that "I don't know when we'll get round to doing any more" when she appeared on ITV's Lorraine in November.

"Sally has written two episodes that are going to go on to another series," she added, referring to the two Christmas special episodes. "I don't know whether that's going to get done."

To Walk Invisible focuses on the "three literary geniuses" of Charlotte, Emil and Anne Brontë, concentrating on the years leading up to the death of their brother Branwell. Wainwright admitted in the Radio Times Christmas issue that the story "could have been a full series", but that she preferred to look at one particular period in the Brontës' lives.

This article was originally published in 2016