The latest from acclaimed writer Sally Wainwright, Riot Women is making the leap from the BBC to BritBox on Jan. 14. The delightful dramedy focuses on a group of middle-aged women who form a rock band as an outlet for the challenges in their lives. It’s hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure, thanks to the depth of the characters and the deft hand the cast uses to bring them to life.

Two of the most emotional arcs in the show’s first season belong to the seemingly straightlaced Beth and the chaotic Kitty, both of whom are hiding a deep well of pain from the world. During an interview with TVBrittanyF.com, Riot Women stars Joanna Scanlan (Beth) and Rosalie Craig (Kitty) shared their initial reactions to Sally Wainwright’s script. They also spoke about finding the spirit of the band on stage, and what Riot Women Season 2 could hold.

Brandon Zachary: Sally Wainwright scripts are something special. What was your first reaction to Riot Women and these characters?

Joanna Scanlan: I was intrigued by the trajectory. The show starts at the end of someone’s life, potentially, and then she has to reinvent herself. There are two paths open to her at that juncture: death or there is music. She goes down the music path, and that takes her into contact with other people and intimacy and friendship and love and creativity and sound, and a means of connecting back to herself and to think yeah, actually, I’m going to live life on my terms. I really liked that.

Rosalie Craig: Truthfully, when I got the call that Sally Wainwright would like to meet for this part, I thought it was a joke. I had to check the email again, make sure it was real. Then I was like, ‘Okay, well, let’s open the script, and hopefully it will be something that I think I can do.’ I remember working so hard on the script and so hard for the meeting, because I thought, ‘This is my one time I’m ever going to meet Sally Wainwright, and then it’s going to be done. So I’ve got to make a good impression. I shall never get the role, but as long as I don’t embarrass myself, it’s okay.’ So I got into the meeting… I’m just going to take along my version of what I think Kitty would be like. And thankfully, Sally was like, ‘Yes, please.’

As a performer, how did you approach roles that are all about realizing that potential? How did you find the balance of believable nerves and raw character, from the fun of being on stage to the sadder character moments?

Scanlan: You’re always playing the character, and you’re always playing the story. Even though we were playing as a band when we weren’t a band… I was still very much aware of what Beth’s role is and how she sees herself. I think she sees herself as the teacher in the band. She’s being serious and trying to keep time and make sure that Jess is on time. So actually, when we were rehearsing, I realized the piano, the keyboards, the rhythm section, the drums… we have to really work together, keyboards and drums and everything else, so that we don’t go out of time. Because the guitars can’t keep time and the vocalist can’t keep time, we have to.

So I think that’s how I approached all those scenes. What’s Beth thinking here? She’s thinking, ‘Oh, you’re going too fast, you’re going too slow, up, down, around, about, how do we shape this sound?’ Then she ends up with this very strong connection with the vocalist, and she trusts that. So she’s got to listen as well and make that sound. It’s very technical, playing music. It’s not different from acting. There is an element of technicality in the whole thing, and that’s actually what you’re spending 98 percent of your time thinking about.

Craig: With all the darkness that Kitty holds and what the storyline holds, whenever you find yourself in a horrific situation, there is a kind of hilarity to it. Kitty uses humor as a kind of weapon in her arsenal. That she would say life’s tough enough, and you’ve got to try and find some humor amid the tragedy—I love the fact that Sally incorporates all that into the script.

Rosalie, you have so much experience in musical theater. How does singing in this kind of stage setting shift your approach?

Craig: They’re kind of not comparable, but yet they are. I suppose what was really nice and refreshing was that I wasn’t being asked to suddenly have the character break into song. When that happens, you’re like ‘Okay, how am I going to sell that?’ Some musicals are kind of just, oh, and now they’re singing… What I loved about [Riot Women] was the courage of a character just singing, because it was just them exercising their feelings, or just doing it to make them feel good, or they were getting rid of something. It’s a great form of expression and a great way for you to take out a hell of a rage, down a microphone and really scream, and just scream about things that particularly in this show, we’re told not to. It’s okay to be really out there and gross and lovely as a woman. It doesn’t always have to be contained.

What surprised you the most about this experience on Riot Women?

Scanlan: I didn’t bargain for how dominating Beth’s depression would be, because I couldn’t really shake that off. It wasn’t easy to play, to be in that cloud of suppressed emotion for a long time. Even then, there’s an element of like, her life is shit! I don’t think I bargained for how difficult that was going to be to shake off. It was this total immersion, really. I certainly felt a lot of joy in playing the music, and a lot of connection in the playing of the music. That was brilliant to have, but it was a momentary relief from what otherwise was a tough role.

Craig: The response to the show over here has been very humbling. We were very nervous. Are they going to like this? It surprised me that people like the character of Kitty; they’ve warmed to her. They feel attached to her, and they go on a journey with her. So many women have taken so much hope—and not just women. I’ve had as many guys and other people, young and old people, coming up and talking to me about it.

They’ve been saying that it’s really helped them. People on social media have reached out, saying it’s freed them from something in their lives. What better thing to do? I mean, it’s pretty selfish to be an actor. It’s quite a selfish existence. If you’re pretending to be someone else and [you] get paid for it, this is actually doing some good with it. This is helping something, because otherwise it’s kind of like a form of madness. [Laughter.] But it can help people who are watching it, and that makes it worth it.

Riot Women Season 2 has already been announced. What are you excited for in the next batch of episodes?

Craig: I think Sally is going to surprise us all. I mean, Sally’s never going to go the way you expect. You saw that with Happy Valley; it didn’t go the direction you might have predicted. I think she will have absorbed the show in its totality and the characters.

I guess one of the things I think everybody is going to want to see is more of the other characters’ lives. We can go deeper into that friend group and in the band and what’s going on behind their lives. We can learn much more about Jess and Yvonne! I think that’s going to be really great.

Riot Women streams Jan. 14 on BritBox. Photo Credit: Courtesy of BritBox.