Ay up, our kid. Sally Wainwright is back on t’ BBC with her latest issues-based drama, Riot Women. On paper, it couldn’t be more appropriate for me- it’s about a group of menopausal women (tick) struggling with being largely ignored by society (tick) who decide to form a punk band (yup). But, oh boy, did this one miss the mark.
The characters are merely there to serve the plot. Kitty (Rosalie Craig) drunkenly swaggers into a supermarket, and buys knives and vodka. She’s “A Loose Canon”. We know this because she’s dressed in an alternative fashion: massive Doc Marten boots, messy hair and gold leggings. I’ve rarely seen this cliche of womanhood without her being portrayed as dangerous and deranged. We alternative types can’t be trusted, ya know. Yawn. Holly (Tamsin Greig) nabs her on her last day in the police force and… Whaddya know, a friendship is formed. Meanwhile, stuffy teacher Beth (Joanna Scanlan) is suicidal, saved from the rope by her friend Jess (Lorraine Ashbourne) who calls, asking if she’d like to join her band. Thus, the “punk” band (hmmm) Riot Women is formed from this seemingly disparate group of ladies.
Throw in stuff about gangsters, exes and family dysfunction and stir liberally and voila – another cut and paste BBC drama. It’s the kind of thing Wainwright is known for: strong women navigating contemporary society and its pitfalls, yada yada. I didn’t watch her recent hit, Happy Valley, because I couldn’t be bothered with another police series.
Here’s the other problem: yet again, despite the recent drama Mix Tape being rather good, this programme is written by someone who doesn’t listen to contemporary music. Wainwright seems to assume that middle-aged women, all of us without exception, have given up on pop culture,and ourselves. That we’re too involved with marriage, babies and quotidian lifestyles to care about music or art. I’m sick of it. We’re not all breeders, we’ve not all succumbed to the Stepford Wife lifestyle and are sat with resentful kids, left alone and wondering why.
And the soundtrack is, accordingly, stuck in the past. Garbage, Skunk Anansie and Kitty doing an appalling rawk karaoke version of Hole’s ‘Violet’ Guess who is made into the lead singer.The assumption that there are no older women making interesting music just now: Kim Gordon; Kim Deal, St Vincent, Julia Holter, Kathryn Joseph, Gina Birch, Le Tigre, Bjork, Brittany Howard et al would have something to say on this.
Wainwright should stick to what she knows. Music is not her forte. Yet again, the BBC struggles to depict alternative culture and women of a certain age. Imagine the scene if Kitty had flipped out to The Raincoats’ ‘Fairy tale In The Supermarket’. Therein lies the problem. Sally Wainwright has probably never heard of The Raincoats- or anything more contemporary. I’m not going back for the encore.
BBC 1 on Sundays, 9 pm.
Hit The North 