Happy Valley’s Sally Wainwright divulges emotional personal inspiration behind Riot Women - as cast of characters explained

Then there was Last Tango in Halifax, based on Wainwright’s widowed mother finding love again in her 70s, starring the dazzling Nicola Walker and Sarah Lancashire. Two years later Lancashire eclipsed herself in 2014’s Happy Valley, then Suranne Jones made top hats sexy in 2019’s Gentleman Jack. For my money, there is no better curator of women’s lives, past and present, and no more gifted television writer.

During that chat, Wainwright told me that she was working on a new BBC series about five menopausal women in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, who form a makeshift punk band to enter a talent contest and in the process vent their emotions. When she said in passing that she knew very little about music, I told her I’d written two books about women in rock. She asked for copies, and I was just thrilled at the idea that Sally Wainwright might have one of my books on her shelf.

When she asked if I’d be music consultant on what would become Riot Women, it was the kind of job that dreams are made of. As part of my remit, I found ARXX [Arrows in Action], the Brighton band who ended up writing the original music for the series, and suggested that Kitty, the lead vocalist of Riot Women, performs Hole’s Violet when she does drunken karaoke (it’s tough to replicate Courtney Love’s ragged, impassioned lyrics, but Rosalie Craig – a real find – does it perfectly).

The idea for Riot Women had been on Wainwright’s mind for a long time. As a teenager, she decided to become a writer after being dazzled by Howard Schuman’s radical mid-70s musical drama Rock Follies, about a fearless rock band led by Rula Lenska, Julie Covington and Charlotte Cornwell (they drank, they swore, they had armpit hair; it was great TV).

Around a decade ago, Wainwright thought older women forming a band might be an interesting way to write about the menopause. It very much tied in with her ethos that women can do whatever the hell they like, whenever they like – even when sleep becomes an unattainable dream and hot flushes don’t just happen when they can’t remember their best friends’ names.

What, then, was the menopause like for Wainwright herself, who turns 62 next month? “When I talked to Louise Newson [a hormone expert who advised on the menopause for the series], I told her that my mum died with dementia and osteoporosis, and she recommended that I start on HRT. I was considering taking it as an experiment for the show, before realising it can protect against both osteoporosis and dementia [though there is no definitive proof of the latter]. Louise thinks that women should take HRT as long as they need it. You know” – she raises an eyebrow – “as ARXX wrote in Seeing Red, if the menopause happened to blokes, we’d be getting HRT from Tesco.”’

Wainwright’s mum died at the end of 2022 after suffering from dementia for six years. Wainwright misses showing her scripts to her. “I show my work to my friends all the time, but it’s never the same as sharing it with my mum. I’ve adapted to her not being here, but I still feel sad. Like there’s always something missing. She’d have absolutely loved Riot Women because she loved Tamsin Greig when she was in The Archers.”

In another song ARXX wrote for Riot Women, Wainwright contributed the lyrics “You’re just like your mother”. It’s something her ex-husband – and father of her two sons, now in their 20s and both living at home with her in Oxfordshire – used to say to her when they had arguments (he left her after 29 years of marriage, around the time her mum was diagnosed with dementia). “It was one of his favourite lines to throw at me. But the bad things in life often turn into good copy in the end. The point of the song is that it’s actually a compliment. I’m very happy to be like my mum!”

Partly in tribute to her dear mum and partly because she never shies away from the reality of middle-aged women who find themselves having to deal with both teenage kids and ageing parents, Sue Johnston and Anne Reid play older mothers fragmented by dementia in Riot Women. In fact, it’s a miracle that the members of the band have time to rehearse, since their lives are dominated by wayward kids, wandering mums, work and hormones.

The band is, in the end, a kind of guardian angel for the five women played by Craig, Greig, Bullmore, Joanna Scanlan and Lorraine Ashbourne. “It’s really important to say that the actors learnt to play their instruments properly,” says Wainwright. “I hate it when women mime on the telly and everyone assumes that it’s really the men who are playing.

“They had lessons separately, followed by two weeks of rehearsal, one for acting and one for playing in the band, before the shoot started in Hebden Bridge. The first time they played together as Riot Women was wonderful.”

She beams. “It was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever seen. By the sixth [and final] episode, when Riot Women perform in the park in Hebden Bridge, the actors were totally buzzing when they came off stage. Being in a band is such a powerful, bonding thing. Just extraordinary.”

In a show of solidarity, Wainwright, who also directed three of the episodes, learnt to play the drums. Did she dream of being in a rock band when watching Rock Follies as a teenager? “Maybe for a while, but at some point I realised I just wasn’t cool enough. In fact, I’m probably as cool as I’m going to get now, in my early 60s, and I’m still the opposite the cool.”

Rubbish, I say. Writing Riot Women, with its compelling female characters – and I should point out that this is a show for everyone, although Wainwright prefers creating female characters as “they are emotionally more articulate and have more to contend with because of their second-class status” – makes her as cool as any rock star.

“Thank you!” says Wainwright. “But writing never gets easier. It’s so mercurial, like doing an extremely hard crossword puzzle. There’s so much superstition and anxiety involved. I was, for a long time, scared that nothing would be as good as Happy Valley…” But? “But I’m thrilled to bits with Riot Women!”

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Riot Women begins at 9pm on Sunday 12th October on BBC One and iPlayer.

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