TV Pick of the Week: Riot Women - review by Yvette Huddleston
Riot Women BBC iPlayer, review by Yvette Huddleston
As if we needed any more proof that Sally Wainwright – creator of Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax and Gentleman Jack – is one of the very best of our contemporary British screenwriters, along comes Riot Women, possibly her finest work yet.
Set in and around Hebden Bridge, the six-part series focuses on a group of women in their late-50s who decide to form a rock band, initially as an act for a fundraising concert for refugees to be held at the local school. Once they start practising together, though, they realise that they are actually quite good – and they also want to write their own songs on subjects that rarely get an airing. These include the grim everyday reality of the menopause, the invisibility of middle-aged women in general and the fact that while they are coping with debilitating symptoms, they are at the same time often dealing with marriage breakdown, caring for elderly parents and acting as unpaid nannies for their adult children.
Wainwright, who also directs, has assembled an outstanding cast to boot. Joanna Scanlan plays Beth, a high school teacher whose husband has recently left her and whose grown-up son Tom (Jonny Green) is too wrapped up in his own life with his new wife and new home to bother visiting his mother or to notice that she is in the depths of despair. Alongside Scanlan is Lorraine Ashbourne as Jess, landlady at the local pub who first suggests the idea of setting up the band, Tamsin Grieg as newly retired police officer Holly and Amelia Bullmore as her midwife sister Yvonne, all of whom are dealing with an assortment of disappointments and challenges. Between them they can play drums, guitar and keyboards and then they are joined by Kitty (Rosalie Craig), slightly younger than the others, who has a cracking singing voice. She also has a troubled past and an unforeseen link with Beth which gradually comes to light.
As always Wainwright manages to get exactly the right balance between gritty drama, dry northern comedy and uplifting humanity – as much as anything this is a celebration of female friendship and resilience. Her peerless ear for dialogue and sense of the absurd means that there is no shortage of laugh out loud moments in amongst all the darkness and hormonally-charged righteous anger. And the songs with lines such as “I’m seeing red!” and “Give me HRT!” are absolute bangers.