Okay, indulge me for a few moments; name six great series from the recent past from what used to be patronisingly referred to as The Small Screen? Let’s forget the US ones like Mad Men, The Wire and Breaking Bad. Just here in good old Blighty. Poldark? Sherlock? Peaky Blinders? And…? Not easy is it, especially with the sixty-four thousand dollar question; who conceived and wrote them? Jesse someone…or was it Jed…? It’s certainly been a while since we’ve had a household name such as a Bennett or Potter or Poliakoff.
Here’s my point, though; where is TV’s Pinter, Beckett, Coward, or Osborne? They gaily toss out that if Shakespeare was still with us, he would be writing for Netflix. Where is he, then? Or, perhaps more pointedly, she? That could bring us closer to the answer, maybe a woman shall become our next notable writer? And I would put forward one contender, our own TV bard, Sally Wainwright. A one hundred percent home-grown genius of the small screen.
Hot on the heels of the stunning Happy Valley comes Wainwright’s latest offering, Riot Ladies, apparently a tribute to another great series of four decades ago, Rock Follies, but in my view completely and utterly original. Mark my words, this series has BAFTA stamped all over it, or rather running through it, like lettering on a stick of Blackpool Rock.
In my experience it is rare to sit down to watch, in the first minute of the first show, a botched suicide, let alone with a smile on one’s face. Not a smile of high comedic content, admittedly, but one which simply says, ‘here is a flesh-and-blood human being – a reflection of myself – and almost everything she says or does I can relate to, or find mirrored in my own life experience’. Sorry if that sounds a tad pretentious, but I believe this to be true. Wainwright completely nails the vernacular, our daily interactions, shot through with obscenities which would have Lord Reith spinning like a top, creating social intercourse defined, by myself at least, as pure poetry.
Seriously, this series already has all the hallmarks of greatness: not just a fine script, but acting from all the principals of the highest order, an original and constantly developing musical soundtrack, as well as cinematography to die for. I had to bite my own hand to prevent going beyond episode two and binge the whole lot in one go.
Joanna Scanlan as Beth in Riot Women
I hate to say this as a sometime writer for TV myself, aiming in my own way to portray men and women with equal sympathy, but I truly believe that there are cases where some situations can only be written by a woman, and here there are many, many scenes for which this applies. Wainwright’s understanding of muted conversations, of blurted-out emotions, and of family interactions have never been better portrayed. She also has us men nailed, so often seen just as cowards, cocks, or criminals. But she can be equally hard on her own sex, who she frequently portrays as willing victims, battered and bruised partners, fearful as well as fearless, and above all survivors in a hostile and often brutal world. I also can’t remember an opening scene (episode 2) which begins with a woman reluctantly throwing off a sweaty duvet and summing all up with an “Oh, fuck!” This is where and when my smile appears and stays there for the next glorious fifty minutes.
The five middle-aged characters, with actors all demonstrating that there are still great roles for post-menopausal women, are portrayed in career-defining performances by Rosalie Craig (Kitty), Amelia Bullmore (Yvonne), Tamsin Greig (Holly), Lorraine Ashbourne (Jess) and, as my personal favourite, Joanna Scanlan as Beth.
Riot Women tells the story of these middle-aged women, beset with problems ranging from attempted suicide, through divorce, demented elderly parents, work confrontations, not to mention marriages falling apart, but who still manage to bond together to form a punk rock band as part of a upcoming talent contest. Yes, alright, a sort of Calendar Girls, I suppose, albeit grittier, but nothing wrong with that to have as a fellow traveller.
Wainwright is not without high ambitions for the series, and rightly so, in my opinion, for she says, “It’s on a level of Greek tragedy what happens to them, what befalls them, and what they discover about themselves, and each other”. For her, the series is a blend of her own personal experience fused with a kind of fantasy of what she would like to do herself, which is to be part of a band. Hence her attachment to that earlier series, Rock Follies.
The ladies in the band, or rather their screen counterparts, spent six months learning how to play their instruments as Wainwright hates seeing characters miming or pretending, and entirely original songs were composed by ARXX, a punk duo from Brighton.
Before I give too much away, this is not-to-miss viewing, such that if you don’t like it as much as I do, you’re no friend of mine!
Riot Women continues with episode 2 on BBC1 on Sunday 19th October at 9pm, or, if you can’t wait, catch the whole series on BBC iplayer.
Our Media Editor, Paul Joyce, is an artist, photographer and TV director, currently working on a Stanley Kubrick documentary, “The Invisible Man”, as well as completing a painting series on “Sycamore Gap”, the illegally felled tree on Hadrian’s Wall.
Photos courtesy of BBC/Drama Republic
