The cosy, the comical - and the uncanny – the hauntology of age in Last Tango in Halifax

Authors: van Raalte, C.

Editors: Pullen, C.

Publication Date: 30/09/2026

Publisher: EUP

Place of Publication: London

Abstract:

Sally Wainwrights domestic dramedy Last Tango in Halifax is defined by its aging central couple Celia (Anne Reid) and Alan (Derek Jacobi), both widowed and in their 70s, whose later-life romance provides, as Imelda Whelehan has it, the ‘narrative fulcrum’ for the show, rather than simply performing a ‘narrative function’ in someone else’s story (2010: 170). It is also defined by the cosy familiarity of its tone, together with a comical sense of the ridiculous in its characters and the situations in which they repeatedly find themselves. This is offset, however by a series of decidedly uncanny moments and subplots within the narrative, constituting a form of textual hauntology. In Freudian terms the heimlich, which defines the dominant tone of the series, is haunted by the unheimlich. representing the return of that which is repressed beneath the veneer of diegetic respectability and stylistic cheerfulness. Both are fruitful areas for exploration given the ages of the main characters, and the fact that the central premise of the show is an undelivered note five decades previously, that changed the course their youthful romance Experiences of the uncanny that jar with the generic norms of the show include apparent encounters with the supernatural - the haunting of the barn, where Alan’s son-in-law died under suspicious circumstances, and the haunted house where the couple find themselves locked in overnight. They also include encounters with where the uncanny takes more subtle forms as a property of living people - the unexpected appearance of Alan’s son, Gary (Rupert Graves) which threatens to disrupt the family, and the return of Alan’s ailing brother Ted (Timothy West) who presents the aging protagonists with an unflattering and potentially prophetic ‘mirror’ (Katherine Woodward 1983: 67). These moments speak to Amelia de Falco’s argument that older subjects can be viewed as intrinsically ‘uncanny’ given the tension between the youthful self that often appears to inform self-image and the aging self with its ‘proliferation of personal narratives’ – constituent parts of a split subject that is ‘at once familiar and strange’ (2010:7). They specifically highlight issues of unstable identity, of the tension between narratives of progress and decline (Margaret Morganroth Gullette 2004: 11) and of a present always haunted by the people and events of the past. Drawing on the scholarship of Whelan, Woodward, Gulette and de Falco, among others, this paper will explore the ways in which Wainwright’s characters are complicated and enriched by the hauntology of age.

https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/42222/

Source: Manual