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Photo: Sir Derek Jacobi with the Booths Ilkley team
Last Tango in Ilkley - Booths welcomes 'new colleague'
Family-owned grocer and wine merchant Booths makes a guest star appearance in the popular Northern drama written by Sally Wainwright, Last Tango in Halifax which airs on BBC1 Sunday 23 of February.
The much-loved Bafta award winning series follows two widowed pensioners, Alan & Celia, played by Sir Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid, rekindling a childhood romance. Series four takes place a few years after the 2016 Christmas special. Alan and Celia are now 7 years into their marriage and aren’t quite seeing eye to eye. Alan needing to find a bit of independence, takes on a new job at a local upmarket supermarket. In released clips from the programme Sir Derek’s character Alan says, “Getting a job, getting out, meeting other people helps.”
The show's creator Sally Wainwright has said she wanted to ensure this new series put Alan’s character front and centre. Location manager Jonathan Davies said Yorkshire writer Sally Wainwright was keen to film at Booths.
Booths takes pride in a family ethos and has long been the champion and employer of older workers, 467 employees are over the age of 60, an impressive 16% of the nearly 3,000 strong workforce.
Store manager Rachel Costello said, “Booths is a family business and that ethos extends to our workforce. Booths is very much a multi-generational employer. I think this storyline will resonate with quite a lot of colleagues and customers. Our colleagues really benefit from being an intergenerational workforce, working as a team gives life a bit of purpose at whatever age.”
“We had a great time helping out with the filming and I loved seeing Sir Derek working behind a till at Booths. He really looked the part, we’d definitely hire him, I’ve heard he’s a fan of pork pies, so we might have a position for him at the counters.”
Booths donated its location fee to accommodate the filming of Last Tango in Halifax to charity.