Riot Women: 'I fell in love with Hebden Bridge' says star of Sally Wainwright's new show filmed in Calderdale

Riot Women is currently on our screens on BBC1 every Sunday at 9pm, broadcasting scenes from Calderdale into homes across the country.

All episodes of the story of five menopausal women who form a punk rock band are also available to stream on BBC iPlayer.

The show was filmed in Hebden Bridge and Halifax over several months last summer and the cast is star-studded, featuring a host of well-known and acclaimed actors including Lorraine Ashbourne.

Her previous roles include The Crown, Bridgerton, Alma’s Not Normal and After the Flood, and she is married to Hollywood actor and director Andy Serkis.

"I said yes to Riot Women before reading the script - I didn’t need to,” she said. “This is Sally Wainwright - she’s one of our most beloved screenwriters who often tells stories from a woman’s point of view.

"The character and her storyline very much reflect who I am now and where I am in my life.

"I fell in love with Hebden Bridge. It’s idyllic and Sally choosing to set her story in this beautiful, thriving little corner of the world where all this drama plays out, is very clever.”

Sally – creator, writer, executive producer and series’ lead director – explained why she chose to film in Calderdale again.

"It’s a story that could really be set anywhere to be honest but I do like writing in my own vernacular because I think I can get more comedy out of the language if I’m writing in my own dialect and you can’t beat the landscape in Hebden Bridge,” she said.

"Riot Women is even more Hebden-centric than Happy Valley was, as we filmed a lot around there for this series.

"It just looks gorgeous on camera, and you get a great sense of place which I think is important in a TV show in order to feel like you really know where you are when you turn it on.

"It has a very particular atmosphere, and I think you achieve that by being in a specific part of the world.”