Happy Valley writer says she has been sidelined due to her gender

The award-winning writer and director has earned the honour of a South Bank Show profile with presenter Melvyn Bragg, but she said that the accolade was long overdue.

Speaking of the show, which recognises the highest achievers in UK arts, the former Sowerby Bridge High School pupil told Radio Times magazine: “I thought, why haven’t they done this sooner?

“The South Bank Show did Paul Abbott and Russell T Davies years ago, but I’ve been overlooked... I think it’s because I’m a woman.”

Recognised for her hit television series, including Last Tango In Halifax and At Home With The Braithwaites, Wainwright still regards her five-year stint writing ITV soap Coronation Street in the 1990s as one of her proudest achievements – more so than giving birth to her first child, George.

But she added: “The whole atmosphere is overwhelmingly male and even now it’s tough, there are so many fewer women writers and directors.

“A lot of it is to do with women’s confidence. Women don’t put themselves forward as writers.

“When I started out, it didn’t occur to me that I would ever be discriminated against, but later in life I experienced the difference between how men and women are perceived.”

Even now, Wainwright said, she feels like her talents as a writer are pushed aside, especially when it comes to awards.

While the Yorkshire-based crime drama Happy Valley won two Bafta awards this year – for best drama series and for Sarah Lancashire as best leading actress – she said: “Two weeks earlier, I’d won the Bafta for best writer at the Craft Awards, so it had actually won three awards.

“How does that make me feel? It’s like the writing Bafta doesn’t count.”

The full interview is in the latest edition of Radio Times, which is out now.