Sally Wainwright and the Riot Women cast reveal they really learned to play their instruments and promise “uplifiting” drama with “a huge dark story all the way through”

Published: 7 October 2025

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, and suddenly find they have a lot more to shout about than they ever imagined. As they become closer, the teacher, Beth, and freeloader, Kitty, discover a surprising, earth-shattering connection from their past.

All episodes of Riot Women are available on BBC iPlayer from 6am on Sunday 12 October, with the first episode airing on BBC One at 9pm.

 EJ

Sally Wainwright (Creator, writer, executive producer and series’ lead director)

Watch the Riot Women trailer

How would you describe Riot Women?

It’s a drama about women of a certain age who are at various stages of going through the menopause, but it’s not just about the menopause. For me personally, it’s things like elderly parents who start to need you more than you need them, marriages breaking down, adult children that still need some support, demands at work – so you’re being pulled in lots of different directions and in the middle of all of that you’re having the menopause and you’re feeling like you’re disappearing. I wanted to try and write about that but in a way that’s positive, uplifting, and about claiming your life back.

How did the idea for the series come about?

I had the idea for the series about 10 years ago. It was about finding a life-affirming way to talk about the menopause. I’ve always wanted to write about a rock band, so it was just putting those two things together.

How would you describe the tone of the show?

Uplifting, I hope! There’s a lot of humour in it and a lot of laughs. The dialogue is nice and buoyant and the actors certainly deliver that. It’s got a huge dark story all the way through that affects two of the central Riot Women. It’s kind of on a level of a Greek tragedy what happens to them, what befalls them, and what they discover about themselves and each other. It’s very powerful but very human, very joyous and celebratory too.

The series is set and filmed in West Yorkshire. What was it like to film there again, and why did you decide to set the series there?

It’s a story that could really be set anywhere to be honest, but I do like writing in my own vernacular because I think I can get more comedy out of the language if I’m writing in my own dialect and you can’t beat the landscape in Hebden Bridge. Riot Women is even more Hebden-centric than Happy Valley was, as we filmed a lot around there for this series. It just looks gorgeous on camera, and you get a great sense of place which I think is important in a TV show in order to feel like you really know where you are when you turn it on. It has a very particular atmosphere, and I think you achieve that by being in a specific part of the world.

The show features an incredible cast – what was it like working with them and seeing the band come to life?

They’re just joyous. They’re a joyous group of people to be with and I feel personally uplifted just by being around them. Rosalie can sing, she’s a brilliant singer. Joanna, Tamsin, Amelia and Lorraine couldn’t play their instruments before they started so they’ve been on a massive journey where they are now a band – they are really playing those instruments. Toby Higgins and Nick Pinchpeck have been their music teachers, and they’ve all really applied themselves.

It’s miraculous what they’ve done in quite a short space of time, it’s been around 6 to 7 months. I was really keen that they should be playing their own instruments, I hate it when you see people pretending or miming as I think it instantly takes you out of it. I think it also helped them to really own their characters.

The five band members are all very different. Can you tell us about each of them, as a way of introduction?

Joanna Scanlan is playing Beth who we meet in episode one and she’s in a really dark place. Everything is piling on top of her with lots of different demands from her son, her elderly mother and her work and within all that she feels she’s losing her identity. It’s a common experience with menopause that you lose sight of who you are, and at a time in life when you felt like you’ve got to know who you are, it suddenly all disappears. It slips through your fingers, and I’ve experienced that myself.

Beth’s friend, Jess (played by Lorraine Ashbourne), rings her up and says “do you want to be in a rock band?” – it’s just for a silly little talent contest that the local primary school are putting on. Beth latches onto this and takes it a bit too seriously and then gets upset when the others in the band think it’s just for fun. She walks out of their first meeting feeling disillusioned and completely by chance bumps into Kitty (played by Rosalie Craig). They’re like chalk and cheese; they couldn’t be any more different. It’s a complete fluke that they meet but they happen to get on really well.

We first meet Kitty when she’s in a very dark place and she’s trying to end it all. Kitty and Beth meet and they bring out the best in each other. They then find out they do have something much more profound and shocking in common, which is where the Greek tragedy element comes in. They go on a massive journey together which, as well as having this dark thread through it, it’s actually very creative. We joked on set that they’re the Lennon and McCartney of Riot Women. They have musical knowledge, and they spark each other off.

There’s Holly (played by Tamsin Greig) and we first meet her on the day she retires and she’s actually arresting Kitty for trashing a supermarket. Holly is very ‘can do’ and has a policy of always saying yes. Jess has a list of all the people she can ask to be in her silly little rock band and there’s a tick next to Holly’s name. What you see is what you get with Holly.

Yvonne is played by Amelia Bullmore – it’s the fourth time I’ve worked with Amelia and it’s brilliant. Yvonne is Holly’s big sister. She’s a nice foil to Holly and to the other women in the band, she just says it how it is and doesn’t try to flatter people or agree with anyone for the wrong reasons. Then Kitty shows up and she’s the only one that really stands up to her, equally with Yvonne to Kitty. They have a couple of nice head-to-head scenes, which was great to write.

What made you want to write a series like Riot Women?

I just want to entertain people primarily; it’s always been what I’ve wanted to do. I wanted to write about the menopause because I was going through it, it was interesting and something I hadn’t really thought about until it started to happen. My mum told me that she laughed her way through the menopause, and I thought I was going to do that too. Looking back though, I don’t think she did laugh her way through it, and I think she was having quite a tough time with it. People just didn’t talk about it then, but people are talking about the menopause a lot more now and we can actually have shows on telly that are about women going through the menopause. It’s out there more. I wanted to address how it can make you feel but also to present it in a way that is uplifting.

We have very set ideas about the menopause – we think it’s just hot flushes and being a bit bad tempered but there’s a lot more to it. Kitty, for example, is menopausal and she’s only in her early 40s. You can menopause at any age and for a lot of women HRT can help you at any age, it shouldn’t just be for two years when you’re absolutely at the end of your tether. We should have more knowledge about menopause and what HRT can do.

ARXX came on board to write the songs for the Riot Women band. How did you find them and what was it like working with them?

The songs are composed by ARXX, a band recommended by Amy Raphael, the rock journalist, who came on board early on to advise us. ARXX, made up of Hanni and Clara, are a Rock/Pop/Alternative band based in Brighton. We gave them some ideas for a song called Seeing Red and we asked a few people to look at it. ARXX came back with by far the best version of it. They put so much into it, and they really transformed it and turned it into their own. It’s so catchy and it’s just fabulous. They wrote the music and the lyrics, but we also offered them bits – for example, our police advisor, Lisa, came up with the first line ‘I’m so depressed, I can’t get dressed.’ So again, we all put little bits in, but ARXX really turned it into their own and brought their fabulous energy to it.

They wrote Seeing Red, a song called Riot Women which is performed in the final episode, another song called Sh*tting Pineapples which is about childbirth and Just Like Your Mother which Beth and Kitty write in the series, as it’s something Beth’s ex-husband always used to say to her. In the series, Kitty and Beth create the music and lyrics with input from the other members of the band.

You also learned to play some instruments when you were writing this show. How did that affect your creative process? Did it change how you approached different characters?

I’ve learnt to play the drums and the electric guitar for the show and for my own prep about how realistic it is that a group of women can learn to do this. It’s just joyous and so fabulous – I know the actors had so much fun playing together and they got a real buzz out of it as it’s very different to just acting together. It is life-enhancing and certainly made me appreciate rock bands and people that can play instruments, they make it look so easy but of course it isn’t!

I wanted Kitty to be the singer because we meet her doing karaoke in episode one and she was always meant to look like a rockstar and be a bit of a wildcard. Beth was always going to play the keyboard because she’s a teacher and you could imagine her having piano lessons growing up. Jess’ story is that her husband left his drumkit behind in the garage when he cleared off, so she’s adopted it. For Holly and Yvonne, the idea was that Yvonne had guitar lessons as a kid, so she picked up the lead and Holly plays the bass because she arrested someone, and he lent her his bass guitar.

I’m really proud of them, they’re all my little riot babies! It’s been a great crew and team. The Riot Women have really put their hearts and souls into it, and it’s been so uplifting to work with them. They’re all top-drawer people.

Meet the Riot Women

Joanna Scanlan (Beth Thornton)

How would you describe Beth?

Beth is an English teacher, but she’s always been the one accompanying assemblies, school plays, and productions at work. I think there’s always been the desire to be a lot more than that, as a musician. When her friend Jess suggests that they start a band, the inkling of doing something different that relates to her own love of music and the music of her past life – punk and rock – and the wildness she’s never been able to express since she became a teacher, got married and adopted her son, starts to emerge.

She encounters Kitty (Rosalie Craig), who is the polar opposite of Beth, she’s chaotic and living right on the edge. In there, they find a musical language together and Kitty becomes an utter inspiration and companion to Beth. It’s that ability to find someone who gets you. That enjoyment of music is really where the story kicks off for Beth.

What drew you to the series and this role?

When I read the story and the script, it was a real page turner, and I just wanted to be part of something that really gets to the heart of life. There is something about it that is everyday but there’s something about it that is also extremely transformative and magical.

What was it like learning musical instruments for this role?

Rosalie, who is playing Kitty, is a musician. She’s a fabulous singer, worked in musical theatre all her life, and she can play piano, guitar and everything else. She is deeply musical.

I have had to learn every note the hard way to be in the band. Throughout the journey we’ve been on together as musicians, she’s been really generous and encouraging about making mistakes and not worrying about that and just finding the musical centre. When we perform as a band, there’s a very strange thing going on – on the one hand we are actually playing music and connecting musically as best as I can, and on the other hand we’re acting being that. There’s almost like two levels. There’s always a story to be told in the music but at the same time it has to be competent. For example, I as Joanna, need to look down to find my note but Beth doesn’t. So, squaring that circle is hard.

One of the things Sally talks about in the script is ‘boys are allowed to do this when they’re 18 or 19 or in their own heads.’ Whereas somehow it’s hard for girls to feel that way. So, what comes back is thinking ‘why didn’t we do that, this is the best fun I’ve ever had!’. There’s a major high in playing together as a group of five people and backing vocals, and it working. It really does feel good. All that rock god stuff is kind of true, and something to be deeply envious of!

Why do you think a show like Riot Women is important?

I hope it’s entertaining, engrossing and something that gives people happiness to watch.

Rosalie Craig (Kitty Eckersley)

What drew you to this role and Riot Women as a show?

First of all, getting to work with Sally Wainwright. The chance to work with someone so unique, so celebrated and so good at her craft comes along so infrequently, so I jumped at it. It’s a very honest and inspirational piece of writing, as you might expect from her. Moreover, at its heart it is a story and production that has women at its very centre – it touches on themes and aspects of womanhood that seldom have a light shone on them in prime-time drama. There’s a thrill too in being asked to play a character outside of my usual casting.

How would you describe Kitty?

Kitty is incredibly resilient, and she really attacks life despite her challenging start to life. These challenges have made her a survivor – she’s literally covered in scars but doesn’t count herself a victim. Like all great literary characters, there is a distance between who she is, what she feels and how she presents herself to the world. As you might expect from Sally’s writing, Kitty’s life is a rollercoaster – but the inspiring thing about her is that she’ll always get back up after being knocked down (or out!) in her own unique way. She’s funny too and gifted musically, even though she may not see it.

We planned to get bracelets made saying ‘What Would Kitty Do?’ because her outlook on life is a brand of her own. We never did, but one of the crew members had a t-shirt made with dozens of her sayings on them. Maybe it’ll become official merchandise at some point…

What was it like working with Sally?

At the start of a production like this, the entire operation really is contained in the head and heart of one person. Naturally, over the course of the shoot, that then multiplies and expands – a whole crew and universe forms around this story, these characters and this idea. But still at the centre is that one person who created it. And my God is it a wonder when that person is Sally.

She holds stories and characters so closely and in such high regard. Telling challenging, surprising, relevant stories is important to her and to share that was a privilege I’ll hold with me always. To be granted a part in a story like this, to be asked to play a character like Kitty – a character that formed in Sally’s head some time ago – felt precious.

She works in such detail with those she trusts. Each speech is like a musical phrase – if you miss a single word, the line of the music is broken and the melody incomplete. I adore working with her and loved seeing her delight when we played as a band on set. Her sense of wonder at what music in storytelling can do was really special to witness, and if we replicate that sense of wonder in an audience then we’ll have got close to what was in Sally’s head and heart in the first place.

What do you think will excite people about the series?

Here’s the thing – Riot Women is a hard-hitting, beautifully crafted, emotionally engaging and dramatically rich Sally Wainwright drama. We know how Sally’s work grips the nation and becomes a cultural moment so often. The heart of the drama is a very complex human problem – a circumstance that forces the characters to confront their pasts, presents and futures. No small thing. It’s Sally Wainwright, so it goes without saying that there are many narratives that weave in and out – issues of domestic violence, misogyny, divorce, ageing (both parental and personal) – but also moments of joy and elation and friendship and love.

Well, there’s all of that still – but this time with music! And not just any music – original, powerful, rebellious, female-led, hilarious, riotous punk music that infuses, leads and expands the drama. That feels really thrilling – to be pushing at the boundaries of what television and televisual storytelling can do. How does music bring these women together and what power does it have to keep there? How do their lives weave in and out of each other’s when change is happening to them and around them?

Lorraine Ashbourne (Jess Burchill)

What drew you to Riot Women? What has it been like?

I said yes to Riot Women before reading the script – I didn’t need to. This is Sally Wainwright – she’s one of our most beloved screenwriters who often tells stories from a woman’s point of view. In this case, some of us are on the ‘wrong side of 50’ and that’s what sparked my interest. The character and her storyline very much reflect who I am now and where I am in my life.

I felt I understood exactly who Jess was. Like all the characters, she’s beautifully drawn, complete, multi-dimensional, flawed, relatable and real. Sally’s dialogue is always supremely natural, and her characters offer range and scope – there’s so much to play with, so there’s a kind of ease about the work. Like most women, Jess is multi-tasking physically and emotionally – she’s swamped running a pub, looking after her kids, her grandkids, her relationship, her friends and her community. She’s available to everyone – selfless and not exactly fulfilled.

Yes, it’s centred around women but it’s certainly a universal story. I can’t compare Riot Women to anything else on our screens right now – it’s complex, compelling, shocking and at times brutal. We witness women pushed to their limits and then their resilience, strength and determination to survive but it’s also entertaining and really funny!

What has it been like to work with the rest of the Riot Women band?

The other ‘rioters’ – it was my first time working with these phenomenal leading actresses, who are all at the top of their game.

It’s beautifully cast, and we all have our individual challenges and journeys. I need to add right now that it’s not just about middle-aged women – there are plenty of young women AND men in this series, including the brilliant Rosalie Craig who is just fabulous as the band’s lead singer, Kitty.

For this role, you’ve had to learn how to play the drums. What’s that been like?

We’re a band. A legitimate band! What a privilege to form a band with these talented, powerful women. It’s utterly thrilling, and I think all women of a certain age – of ANY age – should be in a band. I reckon this series will start a trend – all musical instruments shops, stock up now!

Playing music together was rewarding and incredibly bonding but there was also a fair bit of bonding off screen as we had a lot of seriously good talks, most definitely prompted by Sally’s material about parents, partners, kids, teenagers, siblings, menopause, women, bodies, health, ageing, and sex. All the good stuff… pure therapy.

I think everyone thinks they can play the drums – I thought I could! I had my drum kit at home and people used to pop in and give it a bash, they could make a pretty good sound out of my kit immediately which is great. However, it’s actually incredibly hard. It’s like a sport and you’ve got to be fit. It’s exhausting physically and mentally. To be a good drummer, I think you need good timing, discipline, strength, good coordination, good concentration and focus – I don’t possess any! Drumming didn’t come naturally so it was a huge challenge for me. I felt embarrassed – I hated feeling like a kid again. I felt so incompetent and frustrated – how can each limb do something entirely different all at the same time? Thankfully my terrific tutor Toby Higgins was sublimely patient, encouraging and very good humoured. Slowly, little breakthroughs would come almost when I wasn’t looking – something that felt impossible was suddenly ridiculously easy.

I have to say, playing the drums for the first time in front of the cast and crew was excruciating – I may as well have been doing a full-on striptease! The quote, “do something that scares you every day” comes to mind, but I don’t want to be scared!

When we finally played together, it was utterly thrilling and liberating because we sounded so damn good!

The series was set and filmed in Hebden Bridge. What was that like?

I fell in love with Hebden Bridge. It’s idyllic and Sally choosing to set her story in this beautiful, thriving little corner of the world where all this drama plays out, is very clever. Riot Women looks at the importance of companionship and the joy of friendship. It’s about being given a second chance and fulfilling dreams. It’s a unique angle on female empowerment. It’s a celebration!

Tamsin Greig (Holly Gaskell)

What can you tell us about Holly?

Holly is a retiring police officer who has been with the Yorkshire police for 30 years, so that is her fulcrum. She is now having to decide what her identity is when it is not rooted in being a community police officer.

Holly is Yvonne’s sister, how would you describe their dynamic?

Yvonne is played by Amelia Bullmore and I think we look quite similar but character-wise they’re very different. Yvonne is a very successful midwife and a brilliant woman in her field. She’s very direct and straight talking, very tidy, very practical but she won’t be as involved with their mother, who is played by the magnificent Anne Reid. Their mother is beginning her decent into dementia, so Holly is very involved and Yvonne is not, so there’s that divide between the two sisters.

For this role, you had to learn how to play the bass guitar. What has that been like?

I was told right from the beginning that there would be an element of musicianship required (but seeing as I gave up the recorder at the tender age of 11, even though I was able to play the bass recorder because I had massive hands), I was told early on that I needed to learn the bass guitar. In the show Holly learns how to play the bass guitar and, mercifully in the scripts, Sally has written that Holly isn’t great at it. So, I’ve really leaned into that! But I’ve had a fantastic teacher (Nick Pinchbeck) since February 2024 and we did lessons in person and online. I also did some online lessons which I booked myself onto to begin the process. I’ve had to learn to speak with a Hebden Bridge accent and learn to play a bass guitar with a Hebden Bridge accent.

It’s so unbelievably thrilling to play as a band. I didn’t know that this fizzy joy could still be experienced at this point in my life. Just to see people playing instruments that they’ve never played before, all doing it in time and playing a song that nobody will have heard of before – it’s all so overwhelming joyful and unbelievable. If you just listened to me on my own, it would be pretty elementary but to play in the band was a little bit like skydiving together, you’re holding hands and you can’t believe you haven’t got a parachute. Rosalie Craig can sing, there was no acting involved when we first heard her sing in the show, you just know you’re in the presence of something extraordinary.

As you said earlier, Anne Reid plays your mother in the show. What has that been like?

The legendary Anne Reid plays my mother Nancy. I’ve loved her and have seen her in lots of things. I’ve never worked with her before, but I always wanted to, but don’t tell her that because I think it annoys her when people put her on a pedestal. I don’t show her that I put her on a pedestal, but she is just a remarkable woman. You don’t have to do anything because she’s so present and generous in what she does when she works that you just get into the flow.

Why do you think people will enjoy Riot Women?

If you love Sally Wainwright, you’re going to love this because you get classic Sally Wainwright writing which is detailed and really clued into the landscape of the language around here. It’s very unusual to see speeches in a TV script because it’s often trimmed down to be fast-paced. What Sally has done in the writing is to make it character driven which means there is space for these big speeches. There are times where someone will start talking and not realise they have a lot to say, and the people around them didn’t know that they had a lot to say.

So, Sally is giving that space and honouring that truth in a way that we relate. The stuff that Sally has written in this series is funny, compassionate, staggeringly painful at times – all the stuff, the highs and lows of life. The five central characters each have their own staggering decision to make. Their lives become intertwined by a central figure who is super wild. It turns out that these five women are there in order to become more of themselves because of the others.

Sally is really precise, grounded and she really loves a laugh. She’s very giddy but her level of precision and the way she can hold so many things at the same time is breathtaking.

Amelia Bullmore (Yvonne Vaux)

How would you describe Riot Women?

Riot Women is an amazing whirlwind mixture of people, very intense situations, troubling things, joyful things, evolving characters, music, it’s joyful, it’s infectious but also painful. I think it’s also a timeless story about people looking to belong, looking for connection, people looking for something a bit more in their life, but they don’t quite know what it is. I think the mix of pain and joy is also timeless. There are strands in the story about male violence against women and since we began shooting this, there have been big news stories every single week concerning those kinds of crimes against women. Sally’s story feels very present and true.

How would you describe Yvonne?

Yvonne is Holly’s sister. Holly asks Yvonne if she’d like to join the band because I think it’s quite hard to recruit for this band but also Yvonne has learnt guitar, and she’s really organised. Even though she’s a tricky sister, Holly thinks Yvonne will turn up and will probably be okay. I don’t have a sister but when I look at Tamsin’s face, it’s like a funny mirror.

What drew you to Riot Women?

I wanted to do it because Sally wrote it, so the characters and the scripts are fantastic. It’s a bold mixture of funny things as well as the deep and dark things. There’s a great rhythm to the piece too. Sally has created some complex scenes where you might have seven people in a room, all with different agendas, they all know different things, they don’t share the same information about the same thing, maybe they’re bringing in a secret, or a private upset or hurt.

The scenes are so rich. They’re technically complex scenes for Sally to write; they’re also swimming with the truths of all those people. They’re really satisfying to do. The heartbreaking and the funny come hard on the heels of each other. Not many writers can do that.

I was asked if I’d be prepared to learn the guitar for the role and I thought, absolutely yes. Who wouldn’t? It’s an incredible offer.

What was it like learning lead guitar for the role?

In my frenzy reading the script and feeling excited about this project, I began to learn the bass guitar. I got a local teacher because the show teachers hadn’t been lined up at that point. I had one lesson learning bass and then I discovered by mistake that Yvonne plays lead guitar, not bass guitar. I think it’s because in the very first scene that Yvonne is with a guitar, it’s coming out of Holly’s car and it’s a bass – it’s Holly’s guitar! I just read the script too quickly.

I then learnt to play the right guitar with Nick Pinchbeck, one of the guitar teachers on the show (and continued with my local teacher, Kit). I had a brilliant little menu of exercises to do each day. I had a practice Dropbox file and went through those every day. Very slowly, in these tiny little increments, you just get a little less bad. It’s just magic really that you can get a bit better. It’s been a long time since I’ve learnt something from scratch. Initially, my hands couldn’t get round the neck of the guitar and then one day they could. You start to get an obsessive little rhythm mind, and you start to identify similar beats in songs or peel them apart so you can hear what the guitar is doing. I’m in awe of all the bits of guitar that I’ve enjoyed, and now I think ‘how?!’ it’s really an amazing and electrifying feeling. You feel like you’ve had some sort of joy shot after you’ve played. it’s a great feeling.

I always thought people with instrument cases were maestros until I was the one carrying around my guitar case and I thought ‘I bet people think I know what I’m doing with the guitar, when really I can only play one note so far.’ Now, I’m looking at people with instrument cases and think ‘well, can you?’. It’s like joining a club! I’m definitely going to keep playing, I’ve got the bug.

What do you hope people will get out of watching the series?

I would like people to feel really involved with the characters and to get really caught up in their situations, joys and pains. I think they will because it’s so well written. I’d like them to be really surprised by how it’s written, the directions it goes in. Your mood turns on a sixpence – she’ll take you somewhere really dark and worrying and then take you to somewhere ecstatic – so I hope they enjoy the ride!

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