Menopause, according to Sally Wainwright, is the ultimate punk rock.
At a masterclass at the Series Mania TV festival in Lille on Tuesday, the BAFTA-winning British TV showrunner of Happy Valley and Last Tango in Halifax, unveiled her new series, Riot Women, a dramedy about a group of middle-aged women who come together to form a makeshift punk rock band.
“I got the idea about 10 years ago and started mentioning to people at work, the idea of 50-something women forming a punk band,” said Wainwright, speaking on the Series Mania main stage with producing partner Roanna Benn of Drama Republic. “It’s very personal, it’s about my life, about the menopause…but I wanted to talk about it in a different way [make it] propulsive and exciting.”
“It’s properly funny and properly gripping from beginning to end,” added Benn.
Riot Women stars Joanna Scanlan (After Love, The Thick of It), Rosalie Craig (Serpent Queen), Tamsin Greig (Sexy Beast), Lorraine Ashbourne (Alma’s Not Normal), and Amelia Bullmore (The Buccaneers) Vienna Blood) as the menopausal punk band.
Benn and Wainwright said the actors learned to play their own instruments and co-wrote the lyrics to their Riot Women songs, including “Seeing Red” (“which is about the menopause,” said Wainright), and “Shitting Pineapples” (“about giving birth”).
Getting broadcasters on board for a show about 50+ women, especially one without a crime plotline, was a challenge, said Benn. “There are no dead bodies in this show,” she noted, “in this climate it’s not what people said they were looking for, which is just sad.”
“There are no shows about women in their 50s out there,” added Wainright, “which is really sad because women in their 50s are really fun and entertaining.”
The six-part series was shot in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, where Happy Valley was set, and produced by Drama Republic for the BBC and BritBox. Riot Women is being sold worldwide Mediawan Rights.