In the process of killing herself, Beth (Joanna Scanlan) finds she’s interrupted by a series of urgent phone calls. First, her brother, protesting plans to buy an annuity for their mother, and then, mercifully, her friend Jess (Lorraine Ashbourne) asking whether she wants to join a rock band. “Why?” she asks. “For fun,” Jess replies. And so begins Riot Women, the latest chapter of Sally Wainwright’s televisual diorama of life in the Calder Valley.
Joining depressed teacher Beth and lonely publican Jess on their crusade into a territory usually occupied by “men of a certain age” are a series of local misfits. There’s recently retired copper Holly (Tamsin Greig) and her dour sister Yvonne (Amelia Bullmore), as well as Holly’s young protégé Nisha (Taj Atwal). “We sing songs about being middle-aged and menopausal and more or less invisible,” Beth tells a bemused salesman at the music store. “And you thought The Clash were angry!” But the band is missing one thing: a lead vocalist. That’s where Kitty (Rosalie Craig), a volatile addict who’s recently been arrested by Holly, steps in. She has the pipes, but she needs somewhere to kip – so she ends up bunking with Beth. As the music brings them closer, the two women strike up an unlikely, and deeply connected, friendship.
