We Are Lady Parts

Neon

People join a band for all sorts of reasons. Amina’s reason is that she wanted to find and potentially marry the handsome young man who handed her a “Guitarist Wanted” flyer as she passed him on the street. What she found instead was his sister’s intimidating-looking all-woman Muslim punk band, Lady Parts.

On lead vocals and guitar, they have the intense Saira, who writes lyrics while she chops meat at the Halal butchery. On bass is Bisma, a mum and cartoonist, who self-publishes a series “set in an alternate dystopian present about a group of young women who all become homicidal maniacs when they’re on their period”. And on drums, there’s Ayesha, who drives for Uber in a VW Golf and punishes her passengers by listening to harsh noise bands.

Amina — “26, Capricorn, finishing a PhD in microbiology” — is in contrast mild-mannered and chronically dorky. She is also a secret guitar virtuoso, albeit one who worships at the altar of unhip guitar gods like Don McLean and Janis Ian. Her musical mantra is “I don’t play, I just teach” — not for any cultural or religious reason but simply because she gets so nervous she immediately vomits any time she sets foot on a stage.

We Are Lady Parts is about what happens when, as Amina puts it, “unstoppable force meets unlovable object”. The sixepisode British series is written and directed by Nida Manzoor, who also wrote the band’s original songs with her brother and sister — anthems like Voldemort’s Alive and He’s Under My Headscarf and Bashir With the Good Beard are now available on Spotify due to popular demand. It’s a sweet, subversive, refreshing and very funny show — one of the best new comedy series in ages.