Brenda Blethyn plays an older Emma Harte in “A Woman of Substance.” File Photo by Christine Chew/UPI | License Photo
Channel 4’s hit drama A Woman of Substance will return for a second season.
The network announced in a press release Monday that it renewed the series for Season 2.
A Woman of Substance is based on the Barbara Taylor Bradford book series. Jessica Reynolds and Brenda Blethyn star as younger and older versions of housemaid-turned-mogul Emma Harte, “a 20th century feminist icon who refused to know her ‘place.'”
Season 1 ended with Emma’s granddaughter and heir, Paula (Mara Huf), secretly marrying into the wealthy Fairley family, who wronged Emma. The season was Channel 4’s most-watched streaming drama in five years, with an average audience of 3 million viewers per episode.
Season 2 will bring the show from World War I into the 1920s as a younger Emma (Reynolds) continues to seek revenge on the Fairleys while also finding romance with Paul McGill.
Meanwhile in the 1970s, an older Emma (Blethyn) struggles to win back her life’s work from Jim Fairley.
Filming will resume in Yorkshire later this year, with Katherine Jakeways and Roanne Bardsley to return as writers and executive producers.
“Following the incredible success and popularity of the brilliant first series, we’re thrilled to be bringing the incomparable and iconic Emma Harte back to Channel 4 again. Series two will continue Emma’s story with all the ambition, drama and family intrigue that made A Woman of Substance such a compelling and irresistible watch,” Channel 4 interim head of drama Gwawr Lloyd said.
