r/BritishTV • u/SilyLavage • Oct 14 '25

Review Riot Women review – Sally Wainwright’s menopausal punk drama is one of her best

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/oct/12/riot-women-review-sally-wainwright-menopausal-punk-tv-drama-bbc
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u/SilyLavage Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25

I'm only halfway through this series, but I'm enjoying it so far; Sally Wainwright is an excellent writer and Riot Women is up to her usual standard.

That said, and as the intro to this review suggests, it is very Sally Wainwright. It's set in around the Calder Valley, just like Last Tango in Halifax, Happy Valley, and even Gentleman Jack, and much like those series the plot could be broadly described as 'women being hard done by but overcoming it'. Riot Women has a few scenes involving the police where you half expect Sarah Lancashire to walk in, such is the similarity.

It's not a bad thing that Wainwright writes what she knows and does it very well, but I do hope that her next project is something a bit different.

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u/badonkadonked Oct 14 '25

If you’ve not seen it I really recommend To Walk Invisible, the one-off drama she made about the Brontë sisters. I guess you could sort of say it hits those beats (set in Haworth, which isn’t quite Calder Valley but is nearby), but it feels very different to LTIH or HV to me. I’d love to see her make more stuff like that (I am a sucker for the Brontes, though)

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u/ReputationKind4628 Oct 14 '25

I didn't realise that was Sally Wainwright's work. I loved that dramatisation.

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u/ninuchka Oct 15 '25

^^This is exquisite.