'WHO HASN'T FANTASISED ABOUT BEING IN A BAND?'

Five menopausal women form a punk-rock band in Sally Wainwright's new TV series – with plenty of highs and lows

- LAURA CARRENO-MÜLLER

Creator of Happy Valley Sally Wainwright worked on her script for Riot Women for a decade before she was fully satisfied.

"Originally, it was called Hot Flush," Sally says. "I wanted to find a way of writing about the menopause without it being a drag."

The six-part series follows five menopausal women as they form a punk-rock band to take part in a local talent contest. But the show opens with Beth, played by Joanna Scanlan, slipping a noose around her neck. It's a stark introduction that quickly signals the show's depth.

"It's not just about the menopause," Sally explains. "It's about things that tend to happen to women at the age I was when I began creating the show."

Riot Women is Sally's most autobiographical piece yet, drawn directly from her own experience with menopause and ageing. "I was feeling quite low and depressed about things and I didn't know why that was happening," she says. "It took me a while to realise it was the menopause."

Alongside this new understanding of her physical self, Sally was also facing a wave of personal challenges. "My mum was developing dementia," she says. "I was dealing with teenage kids and my husband deciding to call it a day. Those things tend to happen at that age. You're juggling a lot of stuff."

She adds, "I felt very low and that I was disappearing. So I wanted to write about that. It's quite personal to me."