We Are Lady Parts was an oasis of TV joy amid the bleakness of the pandemic as Nida Manzoor’s exuberant comedy about an all-female Muslim punk band brought laughs and great tunes to Channel 4. Now, three years later to the month, the RTS and Bafta-award winning show returns for a second series, “bolder, sillier, darker and deeper” than before, in Manzoor’s words.
Written by screenwriter and director Nida Manzoor, the sitcom follows Muslim punk rock band Lady Parts as they strive to make a musical mark.
Series one saw the band – comprised of frontman Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey, Halycon Heights), bassist Bisma (Faith Omole, Endeavor) and drummer Ayesha (Juliette Motamed, Magic Mike’s Last Dance) – set out to find their lead guitarist.
Created, written, and directed by Nida Manzoor, the first series explored the trials and tribulations of the female punk rock band Lady Parts through the eyes of the geeky microbiology PhD student Amina Hussain (Anjana Vasan). Desperately seeking a husband, Amina is recruited to become the band’s unlikely lead guitarist by their enigmatic frontwoman Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), who uses her hunt for love as leverage. As she quickly becomes swept up in the joyful anarchic energy and punk spirit of her bandmates, Amina finds herself torn between two worlds.
Picture the last few female Muslim characters you saw on television and you’re bound to include one of the following stereotypes: a conservative mother, an oppressed adult or a woman in a burqa with no dialogue or personality.
Lady Parts follows geeky PHD student Amina Hussein as she is recruited to join a Muslim female punk band as the unlikely lead guitarist.
Front-woman of the band, Lady Parts, Saira spots something in Hussein that the other members of the band miss and, out of desperation to keep the student in the band, she uses Hussain’s search for a husband as leverage.
Offering to hook the student up on a series of dates, Hussein joins the band and quickly gets swept up in joyful, anarchic punk lifestyle.
