Get set to meet the Riot Women who will rock the Calder Valley
After so much success with her previous Calderdalebased TV series, Sally Wainwright is returning to the borough for her next project.
Riot Women, which is set in Hebden Bridge, is about five menopausal women who form a punk rock band.
"They're angry and they're going to sing about being angry and being of a certain age and all the stuff that goes with being of a certain age and having to go through the menopause at the same time," Sally said.
"They form a punk rock band to sing about what they're angry about. It's just me letting rip really!
"We've got a song about HRT called Seeing Red.
"I've had a lot of fun writing it."
When asked who her favourite character that she has created is, Sally said: "You've not met her yet! It's one of the Riot Women. She's really exciting to write for."
Sally says she comes back to Calderdale a lot.
"I've just started prepping filming for Riot Women, so I'm going to be living up there for the next eight months," she said.
"I get recognised more during the Anne Lister birthday week because there's a lot of Gentleman Jack fans around.
"It's not about getting recognised though, they just know me.
"I don't think I get recognised much, I don't think people know what I look like!"
As well as trailblazing for Calderdale, Sally would love to think she will help to inspire other writers from the area to follow in her footsteps.
"I hope so, because there's still huge, overwhelmingly public school numbers in the TV industry," she said.
"If you go to production companies in London, they're predominantly filled with people who are not ordinary, working class people.
"I think a lot of writers are but the people who are a bit higher up who make the decisions, it's still an elite cohort.
"We do still need more working class voices and northern voices.
"It's confidence, I think that's why a lot of people, particularly women, who may want to write or work in the TV industry, it's often to do with confidence, that feeling of 'I can't do that, that's not me, that's not what people like me do'.
"If anybody does look at me and think 'if she can do it, I can do it', that's wonderful."
What would the young Sally make of what she has gone on to achieve in her career?
"I think it depends what age I was at. I think when I was very little I might have been surprised but when I got to 13 I did work out very quickly that I wanted to write for television because of Rock Follies, a show that was on in the mid 70s," she recalled.
"That really inspired me. I was 13 when I first saw it and I remember thinking 'that's what I'm going to do, I'm going to write for telly like that'.
"I kind of knew, I was very focused.”
Sally says she feels lucky to have got into a position where she can write her own original material.
"A lot of big name writers these days tend to be writing the latest crime drama, writing a lot about real-life crime, like the Post Office drama, whichwasfantastic,Ithought it was wonderful," she said.
"I get asked to write things that are my own original material and I think I'm in quite a lucky position that I get to write the stuff I want to write, rather than people coming to me and saying 'can you adapt this book?' or bringing to life other people's ideas. I am actually in the position where I'm bringing my own stories to the screen."
Sally says she’s got “a ton of stuff piling up” that she wants to write.
Whatever comes next, there will be millions of people tuning in to see it.