Have you watched We Are Lady Parts yet!?

The best comedy series in years is back on our screens this very week!

“Something momentous happened that day. I, with Lady Parts, have penned a punk anthem, shorn from the fabric of my life.”

My favourite band of all time is back this week. Lady Parts, the all-female, Muslim punk band with hits such as Voldemort Under My Headscarf and Bashir with the Good Beard are finally bringing new music into our lives again. Saira, Ayesha and Bisma took their group to a new level in 2021 with the addition of lead guitarist Amina, whose nervous energy and raw emotion elevated an already unique outfit. I can only assume they’ve been holed up in the studio for the last three years writing fresh hits especially for us fans.

The One-ders, School of Rock, Spinal Tap for god’s sake, Pink Slip (seriously if you don’t know who they are, check yourself) — with one comedy short, Lady Parts overtook them all for me as the number one on-screen band.

We Are Lady Parts is one of the best British comedy series to be made in recent years. The first season won its fair share of accolades, has 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but really not enough people have seen it in my opinion. So, this is my latest campaign.

A very short history lesson, and then I’ll go back to convincing you to watch it. We Are Lady Parts started life as a Channel 4 comedy blap in late 2018 (which is absolutely worth watching as its own thing btw), and then just two and a half short years later, it was on our screens.

Writer-director-producer Nida Manzoor created something truly glorious in the first series, a funny, exciting, unruly show that wears its heart on its sleeve. Inspired by the punk band she started with her siblings and prompted by a frustration in her early career of being “asked to write a narrative of the oppressed Muslim woman or about forced marriages and honour killings, as though these were the norm” she wanted to write characters that represented her identity.

Amina Hussein, a microbiology PhD student, who is decidedly in search of a husband, becomes the unlikely new lead guitarist of an all-female, Muslim punk band, with loud dreams and the music to match. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist/halal butcher Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), drummer/Uber driver Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), bass guitarist/artist Bisma (Faith Omole), and band manager/lingerie salesperson Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse) make up the rest of the team. Every character has been written to individual perfection, and each performance is spot on, distinct and well-rounded. They all play their own instruments, too. Huge ticks all round.

Speaking about the new season, Manzoor says that, in the three years between the two, making Polite Society (an absolutely incredible martial arts action film about two sisters, one of whom, Ritu Arya, appeared in the pilot) helped her grow as a filmmaker. Having written the film in her early twenties with the desire to celebrate “a sisterly love story”, it’s been a long time in the making and naturally shares a lot with We Are Lady Parts: the importance of sisterhood, of showing moments in life as they are really experienced rather than assumed, of using cultural references to heighten small moments into huge feelings (in We Are Lady Parts it’s the punk music she played with her siblings, in Polite Society it’s the Jackie Chan and Bollywood movies she grew up on). I can’t wait to see how all this manifests in We Are Lady Parts, part two.

It helps of course that the show’s star, Anjana Vasan, is one of the country’s greatest acting talents of her generation. I honestly don’t say that lightly or to be hyperbolic; if you have ever had the privilege of seeing her on stage, you will and should agree with me.

I was lucky enough to see her in director Rebecca Frecknall’s striking production of Summer and Smoke a while ago. She wasn’t playing the lead, but out of a cast of overwhelming talent in which many shone, her performance has remained with me six years later. I regret not seeing her in any of the other classic revivals she’s appeared in — Tanika Gupta’s A Doll’s House or, again, Frecknall’s take on A Streetcar Named Desire (I love Rebecca Frecknall’s work too, if you couldn’t tell).

Black Mirror, Killing Eve, Sex Education — she’s done it all, but We Are Lady Parts stays her stand-out for me, which shouldn’t be surprising, what with me being a comedy person and all that. She communicates so much humour with a shrug, a look, an inflection (perfect example of this in the way she says, “Thailand is full of Australians” in the pilot).

The entire cast make it the sensation that it is though: the varied personalities of her bandmates, Aiysha Hart as her far more traditional best friend Noor, Shobu Kapoor as her mother, who just wants Amina to chill out on the marriage stuff and go interrailing, David Avery as Saira’s lovesick(very) boyfriend(not so much).

In the upcoming season, Amina is set to flex her newfound confidence, we see beneath Ayesha and Saira’s armour, Bisma explores the idea of change and Momtaz is figuring out who she is outside of the band. Manzoor prioritises their development and treats them not like fictional characters but like the very real women they are.

Faith Omole (Bisma) said this wonderful thing about the new series that seems to sum up the entire approach: 

“There's a line in this series — 'just do you'. We're all dealing with the burden of representation this second series and Nida addresses that. Each character's version of that struggle is nuanced and feels truthful. I think everyone in the world encounters that from day to day — the constant worry that we are letting someone or everyone down. The most important thing is that you embrace yourself, love yourself and believe that your individual journey is important. Live it authentically.”

Watch We Are Lady Parts, love it, and show them we want more of this kind of thing.

Kicks off on Channel 4 on May 30th.