TV ratings: Last Tango in Halifax ends on high note

Last Tango in Halifax concluded with an impressive audience last night, overnight viewing data shows. BBC One's six-part romantic drama pulled in a series high of 6.29 million (a 26.6% share) for its climax, which aired the night after Tuesday's penultimate episode.

A second series has already been commissioned, which means that this is actually The ­Penultimate Tango In Halifax.

And if that makes things a little awkward, that's nothing compared to the dinner party which forms the backbone of tonight's episode, where you could cut the ­atmosphere with a blunt spoon.

And although, like pensioners driving over the Pennines in the dark, this series might have lost its way a little around the middle, tonight's finale is an absolute triumph.

The cast, led by Derek Jacobi, Anne Reid, Sarah Lancashire and Nicola Walker, have done Sally Wainwright's fabulous script proud, making these characters you can believe in even when they're behaving appallingly.

In fact, especially when they're behaving appallingly, as Celia and her daughter Caroline do tonight.

Tears, laughter and truthfulness are all here in abundance.

Last week Celia was informed that Caroline was in a relationship with another woman - a fact you might have thought had been plonked into the story simply to spice things up a little.

After all, as one character remarks tonight: "It's nowt these days. Nobody bats an eyelid."

On the contrary. The way Celia reacts to this news makes Alan see her in a whole new light.

Geographically they might not have travelled very far in the 60 years they've been apart, but Alan realises he should have been warned by Celia's choice of daily newspaper that there's a huge gulf between them in attitudes.

Let's just say that if only Celia read the Daily Mirror, so much unpleasantness might well have been avoided.

Having learnt that her daughter Caroline is a lesbian, Celia is shocked and judgemental. "What will folk think?" she demands of her fiancé, Alan. They'll be "pointing and saying things".

As Sally Wainwright's clever, multilayered drama ends, what started out as the most dreamy of courtships appears to have hit some very choppy waters when Alan (Derek Jacobi) decides he doesn't like this new side to Celia (Anne Reid). Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) isn't enamoured of it, either: "You're going to die lonely and bitter," she yells at her mother when the pair trade cruelties in a terrible row.

I'm going to miss Last Tango in Halifax, as will presumably its huge BBC1 audience. It was one of those dramas that arrived out of nowhere to an instant embrace from viewers, and none of us will quite be able to let Alan, Celia, Caroline and Gillian get away from us.

By the way, you will cry at the end. Oh yes, you will.

The once frosty Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) is thoroughly thawed, having re-evaluated her life during that long and worrying night when her mum and Alan were missing.

With a spring in her step, she returns to her enviably lovely house in Harrogate to tell her nearly ex-husband John that she is in love. Though with someone else entirely. The look of horror that transfixes his face is an absolute picture (no one can do baffled comedy-appalled quite like Tony Gardner).

Things are even looking up for Alan's daughter Gillian (Nicola Walker) up there on her chilly farm in the wilds, with all sorts of unsuitable men beating a path to her door. Ends tomorrow.

Gentle doesn't always have to mean trivial, as Sally Wainwright's charming, surreptitiously incisive drama approaches its final episode (at least until it returns next year). Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid's smitten pensioners continue to be far more functional than their midlife crisis-ridden children, who are finding matters off the heart rather more challenging. That said, secrets lurk even in the histories of this apparently untroubled couple, as Alan opens up about Eddie's suicide and Caroline prepares to reveal something certain to test Celia's prejudices. For all the bad behaviour and human frailty on display, the total absence of mean-spiritedness or passing of judgment makes a happy ending tomorrow (at 9pm) almost inevitable. As adept a balance of humour and sentimentality as you'll see this side of Call the Midwife.

The conclusion of writer Sally Wainwright's excellent, if increasingly bonkers, second-time-around comedy drama. Dismayed by the harsh reaction of Celia Dawson (Anne Reid) to the revelation that her daughter Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) is gay, Alan Buttershaw (Derek Jacobi) calls off the wedding, leaving a distraught Celia to face her demons. Has she lost her soulmate all over again?

Final visit this series to the Dawson and Buttershaw families, and cosiness is in short supply. Celia remains sceptical of Caroline's new relationship, leaving Alan crestfallen at her lack of compassion. At the farm, Gillian is trying to make a go of things with Robbie, despite Paul being seemingly grafted to her sofa, and her drunken dalliance with an estranged John. Recriminations abound, and for once folksy warmth might not save the day. Fingers crossed for more of this amiable drama, which proves that post-retirement excitement in Yorkshire extends beyond trundling downhill in a bathtub.

Sally Wainwright's tale of an old flame rekindled after 60 years is beautifully written and acted, and it moves along at an engagingly ungeriatric clip. Following last week's adventure Alan (Derek Jacobi) and Celia (Anne Reid) are in high spirits, and events have emboldened their daughters Caroline (Sarah Lancashire) and Gillian (Nicola Walker) to move on with their lives. But then Caroline reveals her plans to her feckless husband. Fans note: the final episode is tomorrow.

Last Tango in Halifax: episode 4, BBC One, review

When it started, Last Tango in Halifax (BBC One) was a charming tale of an old couple, Alan and Celia, who met again after 60 years and reignited their romance. They were wonderfully played by Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi and it really seemed to be going somewhere. Unfortunately, where it was going was into that territory called The Sprawling Family Drama.

I have caught up with Last Tango in Halifax a bit late, and, on the evidence of last night's episode, I'm having a little difficulty seeing what all the fuss has been about.

It's undemanding and warm-hearted, true, and it makes a change to have a drama centred on an older couple. but I'm not convinced that saying "reet" or "'appen" now and then really turns Derek Jacobi into a convincing Yorkshireman and whatever its leads do to overturn stereotypes of the old is surely counterbalanced by Alan's "comedy geezer" friends maurice and Harry.

It also does not, to put it mildly, stick to Larry David's Law, which decrees "no hugging, no learning". There are passages when Last Tango in Halifax appears to consist of little else, animosities and ancient grudges melting away with every clinch. And there'll be a lot more hugging before it's over. Alan has "a twinge".