BBC drama Happy Valley is returning for a second season next year.

The Yorkshire-set series from Last Tango in Halifax’s Sally Wainwright starred Sarah Lancashire and made it onto our list of top TV series from 2014. Now, the BBC has confirmed that it will return for another run with a host of new stars.

Sarah Lancashire and James Norton will return as police sergeant Catherine and villain Tommy Lee Royce, as she begins to suspect there may be another serial killer on the loose and “makes a gruesome discovery that will have shocking repercussions for her and her family”.

The pair will be joined by Harry Potter’s Matthew Lewis, Katherine Kelly, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Shirley Henderson, Kevin Doyle and Amelia Bullmore.

Doyle plays a new detective, DS John Wadsworth, who arrives on the block with his own set of problems, while Henderson plays a female admirer of Tommy.

“I am thrilled to be embarking on a second series. We were delighted and overwhelmed with the viewers’ response to series one and it’s clear that there’s a huge appetite to see more of the characters and drama among the TV-viewing public,” says Wainwright.

Speaking to the Guardian last year, Wainwright said she wanted to make the season “funnier than it was”.

“I always planned to alternate really dark scenes with comic ones and, in Happy Valley 2, I’d like to get that balance better. I think there genuinely is a lot of humour in police work because the job is so grim that really dark jokes are a way of getting through it,” she said.

“I always thought of it as a one-off,” she added. “And I had to think very long and hard about how to take it forward.”

The show, which has been nominated for and won over 30 awards, including Best Drama Series award at the BAFTAs, is produced by Juliet Charlesworth (Scott & Bailey, Danny And The Human Zoo and Clocking Off) and directed by Sally Wainwright and Neasa Hardiman. Executive Producers are Nicola Shindler and Sally Wainwright for RED Production Company and Matthew Read for BBC One.

Filming will begin next week in Yorkshire.