Riot Women

Every member of the cast works in perfect unison, rounded out by the impressive talents of Sue Johnston and Anne Reid as Aunt Mary and Nancy, women in the next stage of life, one with probable dementia.

It's a mix of extreme darkness — scenes either discuss or depict suicidal ideation, assault, and rape — and quirky humor. This is a delicate thing, where if the balance isn't exactly right, the drama feels weightless and the comedy much too heavy. The great majority of the time throughout this excellent first season, Wainwright gets it just so.

No series has plumbed the heart and soul of middle-aged ladies quite like Riot Women, an ensemble dramedy from Happy Valley creator Sally Wainwright. Fierce, funny, and profound.

The characters are so finely observed, and their emotional lives so wonderfully textured, that I’d happily have watched them just go about their days.

A lack of subtlety is no vice in punk rock, but it can wear in a six-episode drama season. Fortunately, Wainwright is too curious about her characters to sketch them in their simplest terms. By the end of its first season (a second one has already been ordered), the series has expanded beyond its putting-on-a-show premise to map out a rich network of the women’s family and social relationships.

Riot Women is a poignant and often funny look at women trying to break out of the bubbles they’re put in during their 50s and 60s, with the added fun of a great ’90s-heavy soundtrack and songs written specifically for the series.

“Riot Women” is real; not so much in its narrative, with its backstage musical tropes, pointed points and a coincidence that would make Dickens think twice, but in its character details, and in the contracting and expanding space between the players — the tales within the tale.

What really stuck with me is that each of these characters, including Nisha, finds some form of closure. These women deserve a win, and I felt genuinely uplifted by the end of Riot Women, eager to see more.

Like all Wainwright’s best work (and work by the likes of Debbie Horsfield and Kay Mellor before her), Riot Women covers a lot of ground without getting bogged down or leaving the viewer feeling shortchanged.

Like its characters, Riot Women takes its time to come into its own – but, when it does, it is full-throated and glorious.

Sally Wainwright’s Riot Women (BBC1) started with a dramatic punch to the face and kept up the raucously high energy of a pneumatic jackhammer until the end of the episode.

Punchy, tender and heartfelt, even through its more muddled moments, the series, which first aired on BBC One in the fall of 2025 and has already been renewed for Season 2, is an intensely important but imperfect ride.