"Last Tango In Halifax": where is it supposed to be set?

Cafe Society
1

I watched the first episode of Last Tango in Halifax recently, and I’m confused about where it is supposed to be set.

I assumed it was set in, well, Halifax (Nova Scotia). However, all the cars drive on the left and the accents were all from the UK, not Canada.

So where is the series supposed to be set?

And if it is set in the UK, is there some meaning to the phrase “Last Tango in Halifax” that us Yanks don’t get?

Why mention Halifax in the title?

Thanks,
J.

2

I haven’t seen the show, but there’s a Halifax in England too.

3

The title is a play on the film “Last Tango in Paris”. The Halifax referred to is in Yorkshire. (That’s in the UK, btw)

4

One of the scenes in the first episode was supposed to be in Skipton, but it was clearly filmed in Hebden Bridge.

5

It has a north England sensibility.

Won the BAFTA this year for drama: not necessarily for the younger, car-chasing-alien-invasion-under-a-dome audience, but excellent of its type.

7

Message from infozetar reported

8

I suppose it’s a bit of fun (Halifax being some way from Paris, in every sense (parochial, etc)), but perhaps the idea is also suggest what might have been a ‘tango’ in the 1950s (these two characters) or 1970s (Marlon Brando) becomes something else in later life, but nonetheless still a ‘tango’.

So ‘Halifax’ may represent architypal provincialism, but there’s also the fact of the creator/lead writer being born there - Sally Wainwright who some might know for Scott and Bailey.

9

Halifax. First mention: 1091.

Halifax, Nova Scotia. Founded in 1749, by the Earl of Halifax. And not even the first earl thereof.

Yeah.

10

Sally Wainwright wrote the story based on her what happened to her own mother, who married her long lost childhood sweetheart after they met each other again on Facebook. Both were widowed.
They are from Halifax - as has been said -. But I don’t think Last Tango in Halifax means any more than if it had been Last Tango in Washington or Last Tango in Boston or Last Tango in Cleveland or any other particular place in England that has a namesake elsewhere, had the Wainwrights happened to come from one of those places.