Sally Wainwright's Riot Women is a gloriously feminist anthem

"A teacher, a police officer, a pub landlady, a midwife, and a shoplifting freeloader: five menopausal women form a punk rock band to take part in a local talent contest."

Sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn't it? But the Riot Women, as they call themselves – although Hot Flush was a hell of a shout from Lorraine Ashbourne's Jess – are no laughing matter in Sally Wainwright's new BBC drama.

They've got things to say – or sing, in this case – which have built up over years of not really saying what they want to say. And you bet they're going to let rip, judgement be damned.

What starts off as a bit of fun with mates, and to help raise money for the refugees – Jess doesn't know which ones – becomes a lifeline for Kitty (Rosalie Craig), Beth (Joanna Scanlan), Holly (Tamsin Greig), Yvonne (Amelia Bullmore) and Jess herself.

They're all going through it in one way or another – such is life when you hit the intersection of being a woman who's also over the age of 40... although the baby of the group Nisha, played by Taj Atwal, doesn't escape the pitfalls of being a woman at any age.

From the menopause to ageing parents, divorce to adult children who pick you up and drop you in accordance with their own demands, misogyny to sexual assault, to feeling completely and utterly invisible, as Beth does, Wainwright rattles through the many ways in which life beats women down, at times physically, and so often emotionally.

"She's often lied to, she's often kicked about in life," Rosalie Craig said of Kitty in an interview with RadioTimes.com.

When we first meet the wayward redhead, she's lurching about a supermarket in her knee-high Doc Martens and leopard print coat, swigging vodka and popping pills like they're going out of fashion. And before you know what's really going on, you're captivated by her wild, yet entertaining display – until she grabs a knife and you realise that she's having a breakdown.

"She finds herself in a situation where she doesn't know where to turn," explained Craig. "She was seeing [a man called] Gavin for a while and he told her that he'd left his wife, but obviously he hasn't," which is the source of her current rage.

In a later scene, she spray-paints obscenities on his convertible before leaping onto its roof and smashing the windscreen with a sledge hammer.

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"She doesn't have a group of people, she doesn't have a network to go to," she added. "She comes from a background where her father was heavily involved with the local mafia, for want of a better analogy." He's now in prison, and they don't speak.

But Kitty has been seething her whole life, harbouring a painful secret that has crystallised over time, her identity formed around that dreadful, barbed thing that has bled into every aspect of her life.

Yet she's not alone, even if it does feel that way.

Across town, Beth is in the middle of her own crisis. She's unable to give any more of herself to the world or anyone in it, having been ground down to a pulp by the lack of support she's received in the midst of her mother's cognitive decline, a lack of respect at work, being on her own after her husband left her, and her son simply can't be arsed.

"I'm just at that age, so: anxiety, insomnia, apathy, low mood, brain fog, feeling like you're disappearing down a black hole, drowning, going mad, fading away. Just that sort of thing," she says as casually as running through a weekly shopping list.

So, she decides to end it all – before she's interrupted by two phone calls. The first of which, from her self-centred brother, only reinforces her conviction that it's time to go.

But the second is from Jess, asking Beth if she wants to be in a rock band, which stops her in her tracks – and paves the way for her introduction with Kitty and the rest of the group, who lift each other out of their respective mires as they rise like leather-clad phoenixes from the ashes.

"They're both attempting to take their lives in different ways and for different reasons," said Craig. "But they absolutely save each other – and whether or not they know that at the time, that's the thing that unravels across the six episodes.

"And what I love about Beth and Kitty is that they're not a likely duo, but Beth sort of becomes a surrogate mother for Kitty. And Kitty, who hasn't really had the best of starts in life, probably feels like she can start to allow Beth to be that figure in her life.

"And the music gels them together and glues them in a very special, profound way. Because they make this music together, and along with the other Riot Women, just the way that they're all linked is completely unique."

But it isn't only brilliantly entertaining and deeply moving watching the Riot Women be reborn as they stand in their power, scaffolded by sisterhood, in ways they didn’t have the confidence to before, or even knew they could – and that it was exactly what they needed in their lives.

"There's absolutely a second, third, fourth chance," said Craig of how the drama champions new beginnings, redemption, or simply showing the world who you really are. "You can reinvent yourself. You can start again."

This is Wainwright's most empowering, uplifting work yet – a drama that reaches through the screen and takes you in its arms, especially if you're a woman of a "certain age", as she puts it. It's a love letter to the power that women wield when they band together and reclaim their voices – and the transformative impact that can have on those around them.

"By doing it, you benefit as a person, and you're benefiting others because you're allowing them to hear you in your rawest sense of self, and that makes a kind of togetherness," said Scanlan.

"It's an antidote to loneliness, to isolation, to feeling unheard or invisible."

And age is no barrier to that, despite women being repeatedly told otherwise since time immemorial. If anything, being 40, 50, 60 – whatever stage of life you find yourself in – is even more of a reason to jump in feet first.

"Life seems to stop [for women], apparently, when you're 30-plus," added Craig. "And this was an example every day of how it absolutely doesn't. You still have so much life to live. You've got so much to give life. And picking up instruments for the first time, or starting a new friendship in your 60s – why would that not be available to us?"

Because those scars and bruises, invisible or otherwise, mean something — they make killer lyrics.

If you need help and advice on issues raised within this article, please visit Samaritans, CALM, Rethink Mental Illness and Mind for guidance and support.

Riot Women premieres on BBC One in the UK on Sunday 12th October at 9pm, with episodes available to stream now on iPlayer.

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