“From the creator of Happy Valley comes a new BBC drama that doesn’t just fill the void — it kicks the door down. Sally Wainwright returns with a raw, ferocious, and deeply human story about five women who trade silence for sound, pain for power, and trauma for a microphone. 
Joanna Scanlan leads the charge as Beth — a woman on the edge whose quiet suffering ignites a rebellion that will shake everything around her. The series is dark, defiant, and drenched in truth, blending the grit of Happy Valley with the wild pulse of punk rebellion.
Every episode burns with emotion, honesty, and that signature Wainwright realism that refuses to flinch.
It’s bold. It’s bruised. It’s brilliant. Watch below 
From the very first scene, Sally Wainwright grips you with a darkness that hits hard—introducing Joanna Scanlan’s Beth in a gut-wrenching moment of vulnerability. Yet beneath the tension and emotional weight lies a story of resilience, rebellion, and female empowerment. Following five women who band together to defy expectations and start a punk rock group, the series delivers unflinching honesty, complex characters, and stories told unapologetically through their eyes.
Fans of Happy Valley will find the same slow-burn intensity, moral complexity, and emotional depth—but with a fresh, fearless twist that keeps you hooked episode after episode. Watch below.
In the fog-shrouded valleys of Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire—Wainwright’s spiritual homeland—the air crackles with the kind of pent-up fury that only midlife can brew. Riot Women, the BAFTA-laden scribe’s latest BBC triumph, premiered on October 12, 2025, across six blistering 60-minute episodes, dropping all at once on BBC iPlayer for that addictive binge spiral. Billed as a “menopausal punk drama,” it might sound like a niche rallying cry, but make no mistake: this is Wainwright at her ferocious best, channeling the spirit of Happy Valley‘s Catherine Cawood into a mosh pit of estrogen-fueled anthems. If Sarah Lancashire’s beat-cop grit left a crater in your viewing habits when the series bowed out in 2023, Riot Women doesn’t just fill it—it dynamites the edges, pouring in a cocktail of rage, rhythm, and redemption that’s as cathartic as it is chaotic.
Picture this: five women, all teetering on or past 50, their bodies betraying them with hot flushes and aching joints, their lives eroded by ungrateful kids, indifferent bosses, and men who treat loyalty like a suggestion. They’re a teacher on the brink of breakdown (Scanlan’s Beth, hollow-eyed and hollowed-out), a retiring police officer nursing regrets (Tamsin Greig’s Holly, whose clipped vowels hide a lifetime of suppressed screams), a pub landlady stretched thin by generosity (Lorraine Ashbourne’s Jess, all warm hugs and weary sighs), a punctilious midwife clocking moral compromises (Amelia Bullmore’s Nisha, whose precision cracks under personal chaos), and a shoplifting scrounger with a voice like shattered glass (Rosalie Craig’s Kitty, a whirlwind of self-sabotage and raw talent). Thrown together for a local talent contest—think village hall stakes with Britain’s Got Talent delusion—they form a punk band. Not some nostalgic covers act, mind you, but a snarling beast birthed from their collective menopause manifesto. Their debut track, “Seeing Red,” isn’t just a song; it’s a Molotov cocktail lobbed at HRT shortages, invisible labor, and the patriarchy’s polite indifference.
Wainwright, who writes, directs, and executive-produces this riot (with Drama Republic’s Roanna Benn and BBC’s Tanya Qureshi holding the reins), doesn’t traffic in tidy empowerment arcs. From the pilot’s opener—Beth, mid-suicidal ideation, staring into a Hebden Bridge canal as her dementia-afflicted mum babbles about lost babies—Riot Women plunges you into the muck. Scanlan, fresh off The Lark Ascending‘s quiet devastation, embodies Beth’s unraveling with a physicality that’s almost violent: shoulders hunched like a question mark, hands trembling as she grades papers on sonnets she no longer believes in. “Do you think women of a certain age become invisible?” she asks a mirror, the line landing like a gut punch because Wainwright knows the answer is yes—and she’s here to shatter the glass. But invisibility? That’s the spark. When Holly drags Beth to band practice in a dingy community center (cue the irony: cop teaching rebels to rebel), the alchemy ignites. Their first jam session devolves into a cacophony—Kitty screeching lyrics about “vaginal sandpaper and husbands who forget foreplay”—until it coalesces into something primal. The songs, penned by indie-punk duo ARXX and woven seamlessly into the script, aren’t pastiche; they’re weapons. “Fuck you for the hot flushes, fuck you for the gaslighting,” Kitty wails in one rehearsal riff, and suddenly, these women aren’t just playing music—they’re purging.
What sets Riot Women apart in Wainwright’s oeuvre—Last Tango in Halifax‘s tender twilight romances, Gentleman Jack‘s swashbuckling sapphics, Scott & Bailey‘s procedural pulse—is its unapologetic fusion of grit and glee. The drama’s DNA is pure Happy Valley: that slow-burn simmer where personal hells (Beth’s estranged son resurfacing with adoption bombshells; Nisha’s ethical dilemmas in a understaffed NHS) collide with societal shrapnel (workplace ageism, medical misogyny). But swap the moors for a makeshift stage, and you get rebellion with a backbeat. Greig, channeling her Episodes comedic edge into Holly’s arc, delivers a standout: a raid on a shady pharma rep’s office, badge in one hand, guitar neck in the other, muttering, “One last collar before the pension kicks in.” Ashbourne’s Jess, the emotional glue, grounds the frenzy—her pub becomes band HQ, pints flowing as she mediates Kitty’s meltdowns with maternal steel. Bullmore’s Nisha adds surgical precision to the mess, her home births doubling as metaphors for the band’s chaotic gestation, while Craig’s Kitty is the wildcard, a trained vocalist who dials down for authenticity, her freeloading facade cracking to reveal a poet’s soul.
Critics are already crowning it Wainwright’s pinnacle. The Guardian‘s Lucy Mangan calls it “one of her best,” a “rich, plot-packed stew seasoned with humour” that prescribes the writer “as a form of HRT.” Radio Times hails the ensemble’s “rage” as a “corner-of-the-world takeover,” praising how Wainwright “just does it—in the punk spirit.” Even Metro notes the “classic Sally” blend: “hilarious, devastating and all points in between,” with stars like Scanlan fighting for roles that honor “South Asian lesbians” and menopause’s mess. It’s her most personal yet—Wainwright, 62 and a menopause veteran, infuses it with urgency. In a Guardian deep-dive, she recalls punk’s late arrival to her Welsh boarding school (“Spare Rib and sponges instead of Tampax”), framing the show as a “rallying call for visibility.” Filming in her beloved Yorkshire (Hebden Bridge’s cobbles standing in for every overlooked woman’s crossroads), she directed with the intimacy of a confessional, capturing rehearsals where the cast—many non-singers—howled takes until hoarse. “It’s like a musical score,” Craig told Metro; “miss a beat, and it doesn’t sound right.”
Social media’s ablaze, though the X buzz is building post-premiere—fans migrating from Happy Valley hashtags to #RiotWomen, sharing clips of “Seeing Red” with captions like “Finally, a soundtrack for my perimenopausal rage.” One viral thread dissects Beth’s canal scene: “Wainwright doesn’t flinch—it’s the vulnerability we need now.” BritBox International, co-commissioning for North American drops, teases stateside riots come November, with exec Robert Schildhouse calling it “the brilliant Sally at her boundary-pushing best.”
Yet Riot Women transcends the “menopause show” tag—it’s a punk broadside against all that renders women ancillary. Amid marital implosions (Holly’s copper hubby gaslighting her exit), parental dementia (Jess’s mum mistaking gigs for wartime drills), and career cul-de-sacs (Nisha’s whistleblowing on botched care), the band becomes a bulwark. Their contest performance? A spoiler-free triumph of defiance, amps cranked as they demand space—literal and metaphorical. It’s empowerment not as montage, but as mosh: sweaty, discordant, alive.
In a TV landscape where women over 50 often fade to “wise mentor” or “tragic widow,” Wainwright flips the script. Riot Women is her Happy Valley for the hormonal hurricane—dark, yes, but laced with the howl of possibility. As Beth snarls in the finale, “We’re not done raging,” you’ll believe her. Stream it on BBC iPlayer now; let the flush hit you hard. Your heart—and your speakers—will thank you.
