With Riot Women, Sally Wainwright is turning menopause into punk rebellion

By Beth Johnson, Professor of Television & Media Studies, University of Leeds

Sally Wainwright’s new BBC drama Riot Women opens not with music, but with the sound of ice clinking in a glass and tonic fizzing as it’s poured over gin.

Beth (Joanna Scanlan) calmly prepares to end her life in a beautiful, light-filled room overlooking green gardens and a vista of rolling hills – a quiet, almost idyllic setting for an act of despair. It’s a devastating and deeply ironic beginning, setting the emotional stakes with precision.

Riot Women takes its name from, and subtly reworks, the 1990s Riot…

Read complete article

~	Famous monkey-face ‘Dracula’ orchids are vanishing in the wild

~	Millions will get a windfall over car finance. Research helps us understand what they’ll do with it

~	Should parents allow their children to go online? All the inflammatory coverage makes the decision far harder

~	The UK military says Russia targets its satellites on a weekly basis. What can be done about it?

~	Who are the women supporting Trump?

~	Black hats, cauldrons and broomsticks: the historic origins of witch iconography

~	A Protestant candidate has added a twist to Ireland’s presidential race

~	Can you catch shingles? A GP explains what people get wrong about this common virus

~	The dark history of medical illustrations and the question of consent

~	Slender-billed curlews are officially extinct – here’s why the loss of these migratory birds really matters