Riot Women: 'It’s been a cathartic experience' says Yorkshire screenwriter Sally Wainwright

Sally Wainwright conceived the idea to write a story about a rock band, made up of menopausal women, about 10 years ago. But at the time, the 62-year-old Yorkshire screenwriter was busy creating her Bafta-winning TV series Happy Valley. So she decided to let the ideas for her new BBC One drama, Riot Women, “germinate and cook for a while” instead.

“It’s good, because I’ve gone through things that have become good copy in the end,” admits Huddersfield-born Wainwright, whose first original drama was At Home With The Braithwaites, 25 years ago. “Riot Women is quite personal to me; it’s autobiographical...So it’s been a cathartic and therapeutic experience."

The show is about women of a certain age, and it’s about menopause, but it’s also about the “swings and arrows” of life, she says. Elderly parents who start to need you, marriages breaking down, adult children that still need some support, and demands at work.

Wainwright wanted to try and write about that “in a way that’s positive, uplifting, and about claiming your life back”. “The idea of the rock band was a thought about how you can put all the difficult things that happen to you into some sort of creativity – as I was doing with writing a TV series – by forming a rock band,” she says.

Riot Women follows five menopausal women – a teacher, a police officer, a pub landlady, a midwife, and a shoplifting freeloader – based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. Thanks to a local talent contest, they decide to form a punk rock band, and suddenly find they have a lot more to say about being middle-aged women navigating the ebbs and flows of life.

But as they get closer, the teacher, Beth, played by Joanna Scanlan, 63, and freeloader, Kitty, played by Rosalie Craig, 44, discover a surprising connection from their past that turns their world upside down.

“It is a story and production that has women at its very centre,” says Craig, who describes her character as a “wild” woman with no filter and a turbulent background. “It touches on themes and aspects of womanhood that seldom have a light shone on them in prime-time drama.”

The characters are forced to confront their pasts, presents and futures, she says. And “it’s Sally Wainwright, so it goes without saying that there are many narratives that weave in and out – issues of domestic violence, misogyny, divorce, ageing (both parental and personal) – but also moments of joy and elation and friendship and love.”

“I don’t think there’s anyone else that writes the human condition as well," she adds, “and also who mixes the light and dark. You get devastating or shocking moments and the next minute you’re cracking up at something hilarious or there’s something extraordinary happening.”

Amelia Bullmore, who stars as midwife Yvonne, and has worked with Wainwright on TV shows, including Scott & Bailey and Happy Valley, agrees. “I think she’s an absolute born, driven writer,” the 61-year-old says. “And I think the way she sees the world is quite like how the world is - absurd and painful all at the same time…Her characters are great conversationalists…They say very interesting, sometimes profound,and always entertaining things.”

Wainwright, whose other shows include Gentleman Jack and Last Tango In Halifax, learnt to play the drums and electric guitar whilst writing the show to aid her own understanding of how realistic it is that a group of women could learn to form the band.

Before the cast – which also includes Lorraine Ashbourne, 64, who stars as the pub landlady Jess, and Tamsin Greig, 59, who portrays retiring police officer Holly - started filming, they also had to spend some time learning how to play an instrument.

“I was really keen that they should be playing their own instruments, I hate it when you see people pretending or miming as I think it instantly takes you out of it,” Wainwright says. “I think it also helped them to really own their characters.”

Greig learnt to play the bass guitar. "The provisos for the show were that I could do a Hebden Bridge accent, I was prepared to do a strange sex scene and that I would learn to play the bass guitar. The scariest for me was the guitar,” she admits.

Ashbourne was daunted too. The quote “do something that scares you every day” came to mind as she learnt to play the drums for her role. The actress, who is known for playing Joan in Alma’s Not Normal says she said yes to Riot Women before even reading to the script - “I didn’t need to. This is Sally Wainwright”, but found drumming to be “a huge challenge”.

“To be a good drummer, I think you need good timing, discipline, strength, good coordination, good concentration and focus - and I don’t possess any,” she says.

Still, the cast talk of an “unbelievable thrill” when they first played as a band. “You put the hours into practicing and incrementally you get a tiny little bit less worse,” laughs Bullmore, who learnt to play lead guitar. "As soon as you start to realise that you can have faith in the fact that you will make progress, it’s very exciting.”

“When we perform as a band, there’s a very strange thing going on,” adds Scanlan, who won the Bafta for best actress for her performance in After Love. “On the one hand we are actually playing music and connecting musically as best as we can, and on the other hand we’re acting being that. There’s almost like two levels.”

The music on Riot Women is produced by the Brighton-based punk duo ARXX, who created the original tracks for the six-episode series. It’s also what Craig thinks will excite most people about the show.

“It’s not just any music – it’s original, powerful, rebellious, female-led, hilarious, riotous punk music that infuses, leads and expands the drama,” she says. "That feels really thrilling – to be pushing at the boundaries of what television and televisual storytelling can do,” she says. “How does music bring these women together and what power does it have to keep there?”

Bullmore, whose character is the “permanently grumpy” older sister of Holly (Greig), says the band gives the women an “amazing outlet and a tonne of confidence”.

She hopes viewers will get the same feeling of excitement and possibility, from seeing the show, the same spring in their step that the characters gain.

Craig, who is known for her performances in musical theatre, including playing Arwen in the stage adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, agrees.

“I hope that anyone watching it feels like they can pick up an instrument no matter what age they are and start something new, or make a friendship with somebody unexpected, or have the courage to go out and do something that they may think isn’t for them,” she says.

“Particularly women aged 40 plus, I hope they feel that they have something here that doesn't only reflect them but also inspires them to treat where they are in life not as the end but as a very exciting place to be.”

- Riot Women comes to BBC One on Sunday, October 12 at 9pm. All episodes of Riot Women will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer from 6am that day.