'Riot Women' Won’t Be Ignored

Sally Wainwright is hardly an unknown among connoisseurs of British TV. How could she be, when even a partial recitation of her resume goes so hard? Wainwright is West Yorkshire’s own Shonda Rhimes, Steven Knight, Amy Sherman-Palladino, and Jed Mercurio. As much as I enjoy and admire many series by each of those creators, I actually put Wainwright ahead of them all, in part because of the thematic and character development scope of her work, especially within such a narrow geographic area.

Her latest, Riot Women, is set in Hebden Bridge in the run-up to a variety show/contest to raise money for Ukrainian war refugees. Delving deeply into rich, often messy storylines for its four protagonists. The whole lark is the brainchild of Jess (Lorraine Ashbourne), a publican and the matriarch of a large, blended family. She’s very loving, but also suffers from acute, potentially relationship-destroying Main Character Syndrome. On the other hand, she’s a great drummer and hype woman.

Her future bandmates include women who are looking for a project, something they can pour their varied frustrations, angst, and fury into. Schoolteacher Beth (Joanna Scanlan) has been seriously considering death by suicide, while crimelord’s daughter and rape survivor Kitty (Rosalie Craig) is barely tethered to life, but the two quickly form a deep, mutually sustaining bond. It’s hardly smooth sailing all the way along for two deeply hurt people gingerly tiptoeing their way towards real trust and friendship, but their knack for writing catchy, emotionally resonant songs is a real boon. Newly retired police officer and bassist Holly (Tamsin Grieg) recruits her labor and delivery nurse sister, Yvonne (Amelia Bullmore), to play guitar. Holly’s younger colleague Nisha (Taj Atwal) and her sister come along for the ride as backup singers. 

Riot Women is only the latest in Wainwright’s roster. From Happy Valley and To Walk Invisible to Gentleman Jack, she’s created, written, and show-run her way to becoming the lauded auteur of a very specific place, her beloved home region of West Yorkshire.

With Riot Women’s first season fully released, let’s dig into these four Wainwright series well worth your time.

Happy Valley

In Happy Valley, Wainwright canvassed contemporary police work and the years-long process of moving through grief and trauma while still having to get on with everyday life. Police Sgt. Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) could be forgiven if she decided to hang up her badge altogether to focus on a less stressful line of work, as she’s been left to raise her grandson Ryan after the rape and eventual death by suicide of her daughter. Instead, she soldiers on — often at a cost to her mental health and relationships as the seasons unfold — doggedly working case after grim case. She effectively mothers the entire Halifax metropolitan area across three seasons.

All episodes of Happy Valley are available on BritBox.

Gentleman Jack

It’s not enough for Wainwright to write about contemporary women, though. She likes to spread her wings! Why not pop back to the 19th century with a couple of stories about Victorian women of letters, so the people know how important West Yorkshire has been all along? In the U.S., Gentleman Jack ran for two seasons on HBO, a strong fit for a series about the famous diarist and lesbian lothario Anne Lister. HBO loves a niche literary-adjacent series (see also: My Brilliant Friend, Station Eleven, Like Water For Chocolate) and a queer-centered story (Our Flag Means Death, cultural juggernaut Heated Rivalry, Get Millie Black). In the lead role, Suranne Jones strode purposefully around the countryside, booked no refusals of her agendas — romantic, familial, or business, thank you very much; this was a woman who specialized in getting her way, and frequently broke the fourth wall. If you’re hankering for a watchalike, a fair bit of its DNA can be found in Steve Coogan’s adaptation/creative nonfiction meta-documentary Tristram Shandy: A Cock and a Bull Story.

All episodes of Gentleman Jack are streaming on HBO Max.

To Walk Invisible

Wainwright’s two-part miniseries To Walk Invisible brought the prickly literary geniuses of the Brontë family to life, and I strongly recommend viewing it before watching [or not!] Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”. The subject matter is inherently fascinating; what was it like to grow up in that household? How well (or not) did these women get along, and how did they develop such distinctive voices? It’s grimy and tragic, with the spectre of tuberculosis always looming, but it’s also got moment after moment of exquisite delicacy. The moors. The specifics of the relationships between and among the sisters (and their poor, doomed brother). Their growing belief that their work had value and their eventual determination to make it an income source for their respectable but not remotely affluent family.

To Walk Invisible is on BritBox and is well worth an afternoon spent in its company.

Riot Women

Wainwright’s latest opus, Riot Women, is her strongest series to date, harnessing and weaving together many of the themes of her earlier work — intergenerational households and friendships, the social invisibility of the women who keep the gears of a community moving smoothly, the sexual violence that is still all too common and accepted as an inevitable damn shame — shot through with a renewed sense of purpose and vigor, through the power of neo-punk and riot grrrl. Women in perimenopause and the menopause claiming literal space and making a ton of quite melodic noise? Yes, please! 

Riot Women gives a handful of men significant screentime, largely to illustrate a major overarching theme of the series: men are garbage. Sure, not all men, but way too many of them, and just as bad, far too many of the male characters who aren’t actively harassing, beating, or sexually assaulting women are also failing to pipe up or prevent that violence.

While Riot Women is much louder and more in your face than series like Call The Midwife, these are both women’s shows in the truest sense. Wainwright’s project is not merely to put women at the center of her stories; her series themselves seem to be fascinated by these women, and they make powerful, narratively addictive cases for why we should be, too.

All episodes of Riot Women’s first season are available to stream on BritBox, and the BBC has renewed it for a second season.