Stream It Or Skip It?

In the new BritBox series Riot Women, five women in their 50s and 60s form a punk-rock band and eventually write their own songs, channeling the frustrations of being middle-aged women in the 2020s. It sounds like it’s going to be a funny show, and it is at times, but the way it starts out is pretty serious.

RIOT WOMEN: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT? 

Opening Shot: A house in the countryside. Inside, a woman pours herself a gin and tonic, steps up on a stool, and puts her head in a nylon rope fashioned into a noose. She’s interrupted by the landline phone ringing.

The Gist:  Beth Thornton (Joanna Scanlan) is the one who is about to hang herself, when her ex-husband calls, wondering why she had to sell his mother’s house in order to pay for her memory care. After that anger-inducing call, Beth gets back to business, but then her cell rings; it’s her old friend Jess Burchill (Lorraine Ashbourne), a local pub owner. She’s putting together a band for a charity event and knows that Beth plays piano. The event helps a refugee cause, though she’s not sure which refugees it helps.

Jess figures it’ll be a lark, and it might be more fun if the band isn’t that great. She wants to play something upbeat, like ABBA’s “Waterloo.” Beth, now with at least a scintilla of something to look forward to, plays the song on her piano and is utterly frustrated.

In the meantime, Kitty Eckersley (Rosalie Craig) is careening around a grocery store, guzzling bottles of booze, taking packaged knives off peg boards, and grabbing OTC painkillers to OD on. Police officers Holly Gaskell (Tamsin Greig) and Nisha Lal (Taj Atwal) are called to the scene, where Kitty is now brandishing one of the knives. Holly tackles Kitty, and gets a kick to the face for her trouble; Kitty gets a cut on her mouth from the knife (long story). But Holly, who is working her last shift before she retires, stays with Kitty as she gets checked out, then takes her in for the night because other beds aren’t available.

Like with Beth, Holly is dealing with a mother who is experiencing cognitive issues. She tells her sister Yvonne Vaux (Amelia Bullmore) that it might be time to get their mother extended care. Holly also has been invited by Jess to be in this new band, where she’ll play bass.

Beth feels invisible as a “woman of a certain age”; students won’t even hold the door for her at the school where she’s the head of the English department. She decides to buy a cool keyboard to play in the band. When everyone gathers at Jess’ pub, Beth tries to be heard, wanting the band to be more punk; she even has a name for it: Riot Women.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created and written by Sally Wainright, Riot Women has the “middle-aged women in crisis” feel of her most famous show, Happy Valley. It’s also got a dash of the overlooked 2017 Zoe Lister-Jones comedy Band Aid, in which a husband and wife on the verge of divorce decide to form a band together in an attempt to save their marriage.

Our Take: Riot Women is not necessarily the show you think it might be, and that’s a good thing. Wainright isn’t interested in making a whimsical tale of a bunch of middle-aged women rocking out. Sure, there are some funny moments in the first episode. But when your show starts our with one of the main characters trying to end it all, you know the general tone isn’t going to be “laugh riot.”

Every one of the women who are going to come together and create this band are in that phase of their lives when, as Beth said, you think you have everything “sorted,” but one thing after another throws you for a loop. In Beth’s case, it’s a divorce, and her son Tom (Jonny Green) is barely in contact with her. Kitty has a famous father that buggered off years ago and is now smarting from a breakup with the married guy she was sleeping with.

Jess has a huge extended family, taking care of everyone from her grandkids to her dotty Auntie Mary (Sue Johnston). Holly has no idea what she’s going to do in retirement, and she and Yvonne are dealing with a mother who thinks that her caregiver is having sex in her house in the middle of the night.

This is why Beth wants to do a whole lot more than just sing covers of ABBA songs. In fact, when the band meets for the first time, she suggests that they cover “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”, which Yvonne, who seems to be about as loose as dried pasta, objects to. What the first episode is setting up is Beth driving this group to be more than just a one-off goof at a charity show; it’s a way for all of them to create and perform songs that channel their frustrations at being in this stage of life.

Performance Worth Watching: Joanna Scanlan is fantastic as Beth, as she shows the frustration of feeling like she’s invisible; when the principal at her school calls her in for being slightly stern to an underling, Beth tells him exactly what she did the day before, and it was a heck of a monologue.

Sex And Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Frustrated by not being heard by the rest of the band, Beth walks out and goes is stopped by a great singing voice coming from another pub. She goes there and is stunned to see Kitty (whom she doesn’t know) singing Hole’s “Violet” with almost as much passion as Courtney Love did.

Sleeper Star: Speaking of Kitty, Rosalie Craig does a good job of playing a nasty, self-loathing, angry drunk in the first episode.

Most Pilot-y Line: When Beth asks the group what the “ultimate rock ‘n’ roll song” is, Holly responds, “Smells Like Teen… Armpit.”

Our Call: STREAM IT. Riot Women is a poignant and often funny look at women trying to break out of the bubbles they’re put in during their 50s and 60s, with the added fun of a great ’90s-heavy soundtrack and songs written specifically for the series.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.