
Future of Channel 5 drama with Hollyoaks star revealed after one series
THE future of The Hardacres has been confirmed and the hit drama will return for another series.
Channel 5's The Hardacres stars Hollyoaks actress Claire Cooper and follows the rags to riches story of the eponymous family set in 1890s Yorkshire.
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Channel 5 drama The Hardacres is coming back from a second season
Credit: Channel 5
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The drama stars Claire Cooper as the family martriarch
Credit: Channel 5
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Claire rose to fame on Channel 4's Hollyoaks
Credit: Lime Productions
The gritty drama debuted on Channel 5 last year and became an instant hit.
The network announced The Hardacres' return and gave fans a hint what they could expect in the second series.
Channel 5 said in a statement, saying: "The new season charts the Hardacres as they settle into Hardacre Hall and turn their attention to reshaping the world around them with all the ambition, friction, and fallout that entails."
The second series will also run for six hour-long episodes with no confirmed air date as yet.
Hollyoaks star, Claire, plays Mary on the show who is the matriarch of the Hardacre family, and is key to turning her family's fortunes around.
"What's interesting about Mary is she feels deeply for all the family members, all the people around her, and she does connect with them," the actress said ahead of the show's debut in 2024.
"Even though she finds there is a distance that comes later on, she regroups everyone – she's the anchor, the pioneer, the entrepreneur. She's the mother, the wife, the daughter.
"She's certainly not a wallflower."
Claire shot to fame on Hollyoaks and is best known for her role as Jacqui McQueen.
She is married to fellow actor Emmett J. Scanlan who she met on the set of the Channel 4 soap.
Hollyoaks star Claire Cooper leads the cast in Channel 5's the Hardacres
Other familiar faces in the series include much-loved actress Julie Graham, The Borgias' Liam McMahon, Coronation Street star Adam Little, Shannon Lavelle and Bridgerton's Zak Ford-Williams.
In the first series, the Hardacres family start as a poor family, whose fortunes suddenly change for the better thanks to a turn of events.
Their lives transform from living in a grimy fish dock to moving into a huge country estate and joining high society.
Along with confirming the return of The Hardacres, Channel 5 also announced a raft of other new and returning show, including a Christmas special of the hit crime drama The Madame Blanc Mysteries.
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The show also star Corrie alum, Adam Little
Credit: Channel 5
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