Caroline Dawson

The character was created by lead writer and executive producer Sally Wainwright and appears from the first episode of the series broadcast on 20 November 2012.

Lancashire was initially unavailable to commit to the series, but was cast after the production of Betty Blue Eyes she had been starring in closed early.

Caroline, a successful career woman, is introduced as the daughter of protagonist Celia Dawson (Anne Reid), who falls in love again in her mid-seventies.

In the third series, Wainwright decided to kill off Kate, as she felt this the only way to reconcile Celia with her daughter, leaving Caroline a widow and single-mother.

Lancashire was initially unavailable to portray Caroline in the series, due to starring in the original West End production Betty Blue Eyes.

[2] She stated the series' ensemble cast was "the closest I’ve come to being in a theatre company on television" due to how well the actors worked together.

[6] Explaining how her character ended up married to John (Tony Gardner), Lancashire conjectures that Caroline had been "charmed by his love of words" and that he had been "a romantic who balanced her out".

Much of her storyline is driven by her need to "be true to herself"; though at one stage she considers re-uniting with her husband, Lancashire explains that "she’s spent so many years having to conform, denying to the outside world who she really is, I think taking him back is her trying to keep that up.

Whilst Alan and Celia's love story was based loosely on real life, the antagonism between Caroline and Gillian (Nicola Walker) was added to provide dramatic interest.

[9] Lancashire was initially unaware that her character would become involved in a gay relationship until halfway through filming for the first series, when the director of an episode informed her of the plot twist.

[11] Caroline is introduced in Last Tango in Halifax's series premiere (2012), as a successful headmistress dealing with the fallout of her husband's affair and her own clandestine liaison with Kate.

At the climax of the episode she is shocked to learn that her mother Celia has decided to marry Alan; an old love interest she had recently met for the first time in sixty years.

[21] In the series three (December 2014) opener, set on Valentine's Day the following year, Caroline proposes marriage to Kate, wishing to make their union official.

Unwilling to give up her career to become a full-time single mother, she hires an ex-pupil Holly (Cara Theobold) to become baby Flora's nanny.

[26] The role resulted in Lancashire receiving the most fan mail of her career,[27][3][4] much of it from gay women who had similar experiences of coming out later in life.

[28][29] Reflecting on the award later in 2014, Lancashire stated that it came as "a lovely thing, to have your work recognised by your peers, but it was a big shock and wasn’t expected.

Jill Guccini of After Ellen described the climax of the first series as a "dramatic, absolutely stunningly acted and fabulously written crescendo" and ranked Caroline as one of her "favorite lesbian characters ever".

[31] Alison Graham of the Radio Times praised the episode following Kate's death, stating that some of the scenes between Celia and Caroline "will take away pieces of your heart".

[33] However, Wainwright's narrative decision to make Caroline a widow drew criticism from some quarters; Kaite Welsh writing in The Guardian felt the writer had decided to "[privilege] a toxic biological relationship over a happy queer marriage".