Sally Wainwright has built a career on understanding the inner weather of women the private storms, the brittle humor, the bruises they carry quietly and Riot Women feels like another confident step in that ongoing conversation. The writer behind Happy Valley, Scott & Bailey, and Gentleman Jack returns here with a story that once again centers complicated, middle-aged women, this time gathering a group of menopausal misfits into a scrappy punk band formed for an adults-only charity talent show.
There are moments when the show crackles with comic timing: dry one-liners tossed off with perfect indifference, awkward exchanges that feel painfully recognizable, and bursts of laughter that sneak up on you. You can feel Wainwright’s long-held belief that humor isn’t separate from suffering it’s braided into it. The jokes don’t exist to soften the pain so much as to coexist with it, the way laughter often does in real life, especially when life becomes almost unbearably heavy.
And heavy it does get. These women aren’t simply navigating hot flushes, sleepless nights, or the indignities of aging bodies. They’re grappling with far more existential battles: fighting to be heard, to be seen, to hold onto friendships, to survive in a culture that has quietly pushed them to the margins. Riot Women insists, sometimes uncomfortably, that this invisibility is its own kind of violence.
The series refuses to be an easy sit. Across its six episodes, the members of the band are forced to confront domestic abuse, sexual assault, depression, stalking, illness within their families, suicidal ideation, and the ever-present threat of predatory men. It’s harrowing material, and Wainwright doesn’t flinch. Yet there’s something undeniably transporting about the experience, too. The magnetic cast pulls you into the misty, lived-in textures of Northern England’s Calder Valley, into cramped living rooms and dingy pubs and rehearsal spaces vibrating with rough-edged, amateur punk energy.
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The band itself is made up of five sharply drawn performances: Joanna Scanlan’s Beth on keyboards, Rosalie Craig’s Kitty as the singer, Lorraine Ashbourne’s Jess behind the drums, Tamsin Greig’s Holly on bass, and Amelia Bullmore’s Yvonne wielding the guitar. Each woman arrives with her own motivations. For Yvonne and Holly, joining initially feels like a lark—a way to shake up routine, indulge a new hobby, or simply support their friend Jess. Jess, meanwhile, is driven by something more urgent: a need to prove herself, to validate her own worth in ways she’s long been denied.
But for Kitty and Beth, the band is no casual diversion. With them, the stakes are achingly personal.
For Beth, music becomes a literal tether to life. The series opens with Jess calling her to ask her to join the band at a moment when Beth is perilously close to the edge. You can sense immediately that this invitation isn’t just about forming a group it’s about rescue. Beth is also the one who spots Kitty’s raw potential and pulls her into the fold. After a punishing day of numbing herself, Kitty stumbles into a near-empty pub and delivers a ferocious karaoke rendition of Hole’s “Violet.” Beth watches from the sidelines, and you can feel the electricity of recognition: two wounded souls silently clocking each other across the room.
Although every woman in Riot Women is given a storyline with emotional weight, the season unmistakably belongs to Kitty and Beth. Their connection to music is visceral, almost sacred. Songwriting and performance become the only language they have for truths too tangled or painful to articulate directly. What develops between them is complicated, tender, and charged with unspoken history. A seismic revelation later in the series deepens their bond even as it threatens to fracture everything they’ve built, lending their relationship a bittersweet intensity that lingers long after scenes end.
They come to function as family in the fullest sense, choosing one another with the kind of fierce loyalty life has often denied them. Watching them slowly confront their fears, their shame, and their trauma carries a catharsis that feels earned rather than sentimental. By the time the band stumbles into their first official performance in a school auditorium, it’s hard not to feel your chest tighten. The debut is joyous, awkward, imperfect, and utterly endearing. You might catch yourself grinning, mouthing along to the blunt, repetitive lyrics, or marveling at Kitty’s unrestrained vocal power.
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The three original tracks featured in the show “Just Like Your Mother,” “Seeing Red,” and “Riot Women,” penned by alt-rock duo ARXX aren’t crafted to dominate playlists. They’re rough, blunt, and emotionally direct. But that’s precisely why they work. They feel like they belong to these characters. In an era where creative work is increasingly flattened into content churned out for speed and volume, the series’ commitment to messy, imperfect, deeply human artistic expression feels almost radical.
Kitty and Beth make for compelling emotional anchors, yet their prominence does come at a cost. Their narrative weight means that some of the other women inevitably receive less attention. After them, Holly is the most fully explored. Greig brings quiet nuance to a recently retired police officer trying to help her former junior colleague, Nisha (played with quiet steel by Taj Atwal), navigate the everyday misogyny of the workplace. That subplot carries real resonance, especially in the way it acknowledges how systemic issues outlive individual good intentions.
Yvonne, sadly, feels the most underserved. Bullmore is a superb comic presence—whenever she’s on screen, the energy lifts but the script offers frustratingly little insight into her inner world. Beyond her relationship to Holly and her job at the hospital, she remains more sketch than portrait. Jess, too, could have benefited from deeper exploration, though Ashbourne manages to make the resolution of Jess’s strained relationship with her daughter genuinely affecting. There’s a tenderness there that sneaks up on you.
Still, if the primary criticism is that you wish you had more time with these women, that feels less like a failure and more like a testament to Wainwright’s success. These characters feel lived-in, real enough that you want to linger with them. What stays with you most, perhaps, is the way each woman Nisha included is granted some measure of closure. Not a tidy bow, but a sense of hard-won progress. After everything they endure, it feels profoundly right that they’re allowed a victory. By the final episode, there’s a quiet uplift that’s difficult to resist, along with a genuine hunger to spend more time in their world.
Riot Women makes its North American debut with a two-episode premiere on January 14, streaming exclusively on BritBox, with new episodes arriving weekly on Wednesdays. Viewers in the UK can find the full series already available on BBC iPlayer.
Riot Women Parents Guide
Riot Women is NOT Rated by the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Violence & Intensity: There is not a heavy emphasis on graphic physical violence, the emotional intensity is substantial. The series explores domestic abuse, sexual assault, harassment, predatory behavior from men, suicidal thoughts, and mental health crises. These themes are not abstract; they are depicted through character experiences that feel uncomfortably real. You can feel the weight of these moments, and younger viewers may find them distressing or confusing without context.
There are emotionally charged confrontations, depictions of trauma, and situations involving fear, coercion, and vulnerability.
Language (Profanity, Slurs, Tone) The language is distinctly adult. Characters frequently use strong profanity, including repeated uses of the F-word and other coarse expressions. This is part of the show’s authenticity these women speak the way real people under pressure often do but it does mean the dialogue is not filtered for younger audiences.
There may be occasional harsh language used in moments of conflict or emotional breakdown. The tone is raw, not sanitized. Parents should expect frequent strong language throughout the series.
Sexual Content / Nudity: The series includes mature sexual themes, including discussions and implications of sexual assault. These are handled with seriousness rather than sensationalism, but they are still heavy topics. There are references to sexual relationships, intimacy, and trauma connected to sex.
Nudity, if present, is not the focus of the show, but the themes themselves are mature and emotionally complex. The sexual content is less about titillation and more about lived experience, which can still be difficult for younger viewers to process.
Drugs, Alcohol & Smoking: Alcohol use is present and normalized within the adult lives of the characters. There are scenes involving drinking in pubs and social settings, as well as instances where characters drink while struggling emotionally.
There is also reference to self-medicating behavior, suggesting unhealthy coping mechanisms. This is portrayed as part of the characters’ struggles rather than glamorized, but it’s still visible on screen. Smoking may appear occasionally as part of the gritty, realistic atmosphere.
Age Recommendations: This series is best suited for mature teens and adults, with a strong recommendation for 18+ viewers.
I am a journalist with 10+ years of experience, specializing in family-friendly film reviews.