unPAUSED with Dr. Mary Claire Haver
Sally Wainwright on Riot Women, Identity Theft of Menopause, and Writing Real Female Characters
17 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What inspired Sally Wainwright to create Riot Women?
Today's guest is someone whose creative work has shaped the way millions of people see women on television. Not young women, not simplified Hollywood versions of women, but real women, older women, complicated women, angry women, brave women, women breaking rules. women who don't tidy up their emotions for anyone.
Sally Wainwright is the creator and producer behind some of the most acclaimed British television dramas in the last 20 years, Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack, Last Tango in Halifax, Scott and Bailey, and Unforgiven. Her stories introduce us to characters who have lived entire lives before we ever meet them.
Women who carry grief, desire, sexuality, rage, intelligence, love, courage, exhaustion, trauma, and resilience in bodies that reflect actual lived experience. Now, Sally has a new six-episode BBC BritBox drama called Riot Women.
It's a series about a group of five women in midlife who escape their complicated lives filled with caring for kids and ailing parents and dealing with menopause by forming a rock band. I just finished watching it and I was hooked within minutes. I cried in the first 10. I laughed hysterically in the next 10.
She hits so many of the issues I hear from women every single day in my clinic, in my DMs, and in their whispered questions and late night fears. Body changes. Aging parents, loneliness, isolation, mental health shifts, feeling invisible, the emotional free fall of midlife that no one prepares us for.
These characters are multi-dimensional, complicated women dealing with the issues my patients walk into my clinic carrying every day. And Sally puts all of it on screen with honesty, ferocity, and humor. The tenderness, the rage, the absurdity, and the heartbreak. It feels like someone in entertainment is finally telling the truth.
I'm Dr. Mary Claire Haver, a board-certified obstetrician and gynecologist and certified menopause practitioner. I'm also an adjunct professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Texas Medical Branch. Welcome to Unpaused. the podcast where we cut through the silence and talk about what it really takes for women to thrive in the second half of life.
Tell me a little bit about your background.
Like, where are you from? Well, I was born in Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, and I grew up in West Yorkshire. I grew up kind of in Halifax. I went to university in York, which is North Yorkshire. And then I finally went to live in London because... At that time, people said, if you want to be a writer, you've got to live in London. And that was always your dream? Oh, yeah.
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Chapter 2: How does Sally's personal experience shape her writing on menopause?
And I didn't have any money, didn't have a job. I managed to get a room in a house with a friend from university. One friend said to me, oh, you should apply to join the civil service. And another friend said, oh, you like driving. Why don't you apply to be a bus driver? They also need bus drivers. So I applied for both and I got offered jobs from both on the same day.
And I decided that being a bus driver was more compatible with wanting to be a writer because it seemed more wacky. It would leave my brain free to think about drama and think about writing. And did you... And it was a good experience. And there's so many different people getting off and on the bus. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, three years at university didn't teach me very much, whereas 18 months as a bus driver kind of really, you had to grow up, you know.
When did it become, you are a writer and now you're going to make your living as a writer?
Well, I took a play to the Edinburgh Festival when I was at university. I wrote to a lot of exec producers whose names I'd seen on TV. and agents, and nobody came to see the play. But one agent wrote to me and said, I can't come, but will you send me a copy of the script? And she took me on as a young writer, you know.
And she got me a job on a radio soap called The Archers, which is the longest running soap in the world. It was started in the 1950s. in England. And so I wrote The Archers for a couple of years, which Tamsin Greig was in, who plays Holly in Riot Women. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was my big, I started off writing The Archers.
Then I moved on to serps like Coronation Street and then finally got my own original drama away in 1999 with a show called At Home with the Braithwaite, which was nominated for an Emmy, which was the first time I came to New York. Wow.
So...
So I just have this vision of, you know, there's been a few shows in the U.S. where they show writers rooms, you know, for, you know, they're dramatizing, you know, a TV show and you'll walk into a room and there's like a conference table with like eight people. Is that what writing was like in those early days?
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Chapter 3: What challenges do women face in storytelling and representation?
Twenties, yeah. And then, do they live close?
They live with me. Oh, good. Me and my husband split up about five years ago. And yeah, the boys are still at home. They both work. Yeah. It suits us all at the moment.
Yeah, no, it's great. This is so curious. This whole world of, you know, I'm a doctor. Most people I say, I'm a doctor. And everyone knows what that is, right? But what is a showrunner? You're described as one of the most prolific showrunners in the history of the BBC.
It's kind of a misnomer because I'm not a showrunner. Because what I think a showrunner is, it is an American thing. And it's somebody who has invented the show, has a lot of experience, is usually a writer, and has a group of other writers with them who they sort of are in charge of. And they run the room, the writer's room. And then they also act as an exec. So I don't do that bit.
I don't run a room. I tend to write all my shows myself. But then the other aspect of being a showrunner, which I do do, is I'm an exec on the show as well. So I'm across all the decisions that I made about casting, heads of departments, you know, what the show looks like, what it feels like, what the ethos of the show is, how it comes across on screen. And I also direct my own shows.
I was wondering... Again, that's not what usually a showrunner does. A showrunner would usually be across who all the directors are and I assume be on set with them. And again, it's about the look and style of the show. So I'm kind of a showrunner in that I exec and I direct. So I'm very much across what the show is.
It's probably different to what people generally... Do you do the editing, everything post-production as well? Yeah, I'll be in the edit. Yeah, yeah.
How long does that take?
Well, Riot Women, I started writing in the January of 2023. Okay. And I finally finished in the edit of July this year. So it's been... Two and a half years. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's a big undertaking. Amazing.
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Chapter 4: How does the show Riot Women depict complex female characters?
Yes, exactly. As is menopause is part of every woman's story if she lives long enough. But it wasn't the star of the show, right?
No, exactly.
The women in their lives.
It's kind of touched on and it's an aspect of what these women are dealing with. But really it's about everything that women deal with when you get to a certain part of your life. And it doesn't have to be 50. It can be earlier or it can be later. But for me, it was personal on a number of levels. The idea started basically when my mum was starting to develop dementia.
I live in Oxford and she lives in Yorkshire, so it was like 200 miles away. And she was starting to be forgetful and starting to experience things that were a problem for me and my sister who just didn't live close to her. At the same time, I'd got two teenage boys. My marriage wasn't... as good as it had been.
I had a huge amount of pressure at work, you know, being across several shows at the same time and being pulled in lots of different directions there. And you get to this edge where you kind of feel you are capable of dealing with these things because you always have done, because you're somebody who's always prided yourself on dealing with stuff.
And in the middle of all that, I started to feel that I was disappearing. It's like everybody needed a piece of me. You know, if you want something doing, ask a busy woman. And I felt like, oh, it's me. I'm the person who's being asked things off. And in the middle of that, I started to kick back a bit and be quite angry in a way that was not always appropriate.
And you don't quite realize what's happening to you. And starting to feel, I started to get quite low moods. Brain fog. Someone who uses their brain so much. Yes, and being worried. You know, when you write a script, you're using your brain in a thousand ways. a second, a thousand different ways a second. You're constantly thinking about patterns and connections and how things work.
The structure of telling stories is so complex, if you want to get it right, which I always want to do. So you start to worry that, oh, well, if this isn't working anymore, what are we going to do? The other big thing that struck me as I was starting to develop the show more was something I started to experience, which
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Chapter 5: What are the common misconceptions about menopause?
Oh, there's a medical term for it. So it's not that you're depressed or so low, but you can't get motivated or have joy. You've just lost the joy in everyday things. And so we see it in the patients all the time. And that's why I'm so excited about this show because I think... Shows are starting to mention menopause more, but this one really gave such a realistic portrayal. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I think that's the... The show was originally called Hot Flush, or Hot Flash, as you say here. And the menopause doctor I was working with in England said, I really don't think you should call it that. And we pushed back against it eventually, even though I think the BBC liked it, because it was clear what the show was if you called it Hot Flash. I have a question, though, about...
Did you get pushback? You want to do a show about... I mean, you're a champion at the BBC.
No, I didn't. Incredibly successful. I think it's an interesting question because I think... Because I've got a certain status... Had you been an unknown? Yeah, I think it's probably less likely. But also, just getting funding for it wasn't as easy as you might think. Because it's not the usual staple of men with guns saving women, which is what 95% of television is.
And even when we do see women playing lead parts in shows, it's often a male version of what women are.
Mm-hmm.
Women on TV are so poorly represented. No, they're often impossibly glamorous. They usually stick thin. They're usually under 30. And that's what we normally get as role models for what women are like.
The line from First Wives Club that said, women have three ages in Hollywood, babe, district attorney, and driving Miss Daisy.
Right.
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Chapter 6: How does hormone replacement therapy impact women's lives?
Will men watch it? You know, and it's interesting because people never ask, you know, if you make a West and nobody says, oh, will women watch this? Yeah. That question is never asked, is it? But obviously it's niche because it's about women. It's even more niche because it's about middle-aged women. It isn't. It's for anybody who likes being told a really cracking story, I think.
However, I have to say, we did get a handful of really... small-minded comments from some men who had comments like, there are no nice men in it. And Sally Wainwright doesn't write men nicely or something. And it's like, hello, there are no nice women in it, actually. There are complex, interesting women in it. But the whole point of the show really was about the female experience.
And a big part of the female experience is the way men look at women or the way men treat women. Mm-hmm. or the way women feel at this age, that they're either made to feel invisible or they're often the target of disparaging comments. You know, like what happens to Kitty in episode four. We had a really interesting storyline meeting where all the women in the room talked about how they'd had
nasty little sexual comments whispered in their ear or shouted at them across the street. You know, sexualised put-downs that are intended to show power, sexual power. And we all like to think, oh, it's water off a duck's back, but actually it isn't. It boils into your brain and spoils your day. You know, every woman in the room, even me, had experienced that. That kind of behaviour. 100%.
And then I get criticised because I don't write nice men. It's like, watch 95% of telly if you want depictions of nice men, you know. But I'm not, you know, I'm doing something else. And it's interesting when you think about that because it's so common. I don't know, I'd say every woman I've ever spoken to has experienced that.
at some point at some point yeah so there's a quote you have which i love i find women just more interesting than men i think women are more heroic than men because they have more to deal with i think women are more emotionally articulate than men so it's easier to write them having difficult times and being articulate about it so i really think you captured that well
What made you decide that midlife and that all that comes with it for women would be, why this, why now?
Well, again, I tend to write about
women who are my age I've realized yeah I don't think as you get older but all my shows across the last kind of 25 years I've realized that the man the person who is the most in the people who are the most interested me are people my age like I guess all writing is by autobiographical at some level not always consciously so did you start with an idea of they're going to have a rock band
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Chapter 7: What kind of audience response has Riot Women received?
Some are definitely, they say their ages a couple of times. But you actually have characters in their 60s.
The Kitty's 44. But the other four women are around 60. They're either just under 60. I think they're all just under 60. One of them's just over 60.
What kind of research did you do for the show? I know you had a medical advisor on the show.
We had a doctor who specializes in menopause on board. But the most research for the show was the music. That was the biggest kind of...
So it's obvious that Katie's character was singing her own voice, which is phenomenal.
But she's a big West End star. She's not particularly big on telly, but she's massive in the West End.
So West End for our U.S. listeners is like Broadway. So she really was acting in the show.
Oh my God, yeah.
And then they're playing instruments. Were they really playing?
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Chapter 8: Why is it important to talk about women's experiences in midlife?
You've called menopause identity theft. I like that term.
I think there's this common thing that women go through when they're... I did, and I've talked to other women about this. When you get to 40, you go through a phase of thinking. Oh, I don't care anymore. This is me. That's the best part to me. Yeah, it is. It's wonderful where you stop worrying about all the silly little things that people might think about.
And you just think, or if you've said something a bit silly and you used to agonize about it, you get to 40 and you think, oh, they know what I meant. They won't misinterpret it. You get so confident about all the silly little things that used to worry you. And then I got to, as I say, 50 and all those little doubts seem to creep back in again.
And snatch away this thing that you'd achieved where you felt, I'm okay now, I've arrived, I am who I want to be, kind of thing. So that's what I meant by that, that it did, it's not just the sort of joylessness that seems to take over and the brain fog. It was like you do become, you feel like you're not the person you thought you were.
Do you feel like if you would have known, if someone would have prepared you that these things might happen, you may have these symptoms, these mental health changes, the brain fog, if you were like, oh, this is what this is.
Definitely I would, because if you can give something a name, it means it exists and it's not just you. I was at a conference in Oxford on Saturday A menopause thing. I think I'd been asked along as the light relief. There were some professors who, three women who specialise in studying the menopause. And one of them does work with, well, all different kind of communities all over the world.
And she was saying in some cultures, there is no word for menopause. So how do you go and talk to the doctor about it if there's no word for it? You just describe a collection of symptoms and you don't necessarily know it's this one thing. So, of course.
Well, in the U.S. and I think in the U.K. for decades, you know, menopause, the menopause was only defined as absence of period. So most women can identify that and maybe some hot flashes. But this whole, like you said, the list of 35 that you saw, I was never taught that in any of my training. This is something that I learned in the last five years, you know, becoming a menopause specialist.
Well, I wasn't. I mean, my only knowledge of the menopause was what my mom told me, essentially. What did she tell you? My mom told me that she laughed her way through the menopause. Oh, amazing. But she didn't. This is the thing. This is what she told me. And I kind of believed her because she was a funny woman. Very clever, very funny. And she said, oh, I laughed my way through it.
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