Striking a powerful chord to destigmatise menopause

Well, this is a bit of a downer, isn't it? Those were my precise thoughts about halfway through the first episode of Riot Women, the new BBC One drama from Happy Valley mastermind Sally Wainwright. Like Happy Valley, it's set around Calderdale in West Yorkshire; like Happy Valley, its focus is firmly trained on women in midlife. But somehow, the introductory 30 minutes or so of Riot Women seemed to be even more depressing than a show that dealt with inherited trauma, addiction, murder and sexual assault. Or so I thought.

- KATIE ROSSEINSKY

The opening scenes are certainly pretty harrowing. Beth, a menopausal English teacher played by The Thick of It’s Joanna Scanlan, is about to take her own life, until the phone rings; her brother is on the other end, complaining about the cost of the care home that she has selected for their mother, who has dementia (the undertone of their conversation, inevitably, is that Beth should be the one to shoulder the caring responsibility).

When Beth arrives at school, her pupils seem to look straight through her; when she opens up to a colleague about her suicidal intent, he deflects and brushes her off, as if her feelings are somehow utterly invalid. “Do you think women of a certain age become invisible?” she asks later. Christ, I thought. I’m 33 - is this what I have to look forward to in a decade or two? Being overlooked, undervalued and outright ignored? Getting asked if I’ve “considered HRT” whenever I express any emotion that’s deemed a bit tricky?

But I shouldn’t have judged Sally Wainwright so quickly. Because, with a flick of the writer’s pen, Beth’s life is about to change. Her friend, the straight-talking pub landlady Jess, played by Sherwood’s Lorraine Ashbourne, is putting together a rock band to play in a talent competition at her grandkids’ school. And she wants Beth, who plays piano, to enter the fold.