IIn the three years since this all-female, all-Muslim punk band sitcom first aired, We Are Lady Parts has largely lived up to the creative, reproductive connotations of that title. Writer-director Nida Manzoor additionally created a well-received debut film, the kung fu aging Polite Society, and star Anjana Vasan’s prolific career produced the Bafta-winning Demon ’79 episode Black Mirror, the Olivier-winning stage Turn Opposite Paul Mezcal in A Streetcar Named Desire.and a starring role in the Brit-com film, Wicked Little Letters. These are busy women, but they managed to get the band back together, and Lady Parts are ready to rock your living room once again.
We find them in the tour van, wrapping up “a magical summer of gigs” and planning to “leave our legacy” by recording an album with legendary producer Dirty Mahmood (Anil Desai). First, though, they have to find money for studio time, and that won’t be easy as band manager Momtaz (Lucy Shorthouse) struggles to book paying gigs and punk Saira (Sarah Camilla Impey) is determined not to sell out.
Only the recovered people pleaser Amina (Vasan) seems to have achieved a state of inner peace. Having already completed her PhD in microbiology, she has landed a dream job at a stem cell research institute and a confident, take-no-prisoners outlook. This is her ‘Villain Era’, she says, and it inspires the first new song of series two, which the eye-rolling drummer Ayesha (Juliette Motamed) rudely – but not inaccurately – dismisses as a “basic girl song”.
It’s a strength, though, that We Are Lady Parts can go from quoting Marxist Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz to covering mid-20s nu-metallers Hoobastank in the same episode, and Amina’s endearingly dark mood remains the show’s beating heart . Her manic-neurotic monologues still provide the narrative, but this series is also more interested in the lives of the other band members. Ayesha discovers that there are nuances to being a queer Muslim that her white liberal friend doesn’t always get, and sweet Bisma (Faith Omole) is sick of being the group’s “Mummy Spice” as she tries to integrate her identity as a mother, an artist, a black woman and a Muslim.
PC Williams’ Bafta-winning costume design is crucial to all of this, from the culturally appropriate cowboy hat Amina wears to a folk concert (“We didn’t raise you on the Kansas prairie,” her mother reminds her), to the even of Mumtaz -up niqab. Since clothing is clearly essential to these characters’ self-expression, when the inevitable hijab debate comes around, it at least feels earned and—like Amina’s preferred demure fashion—appropriately layered.
Even better is the series’ exploration of generational tensions, mainly between Millennial Lady Parts and their Gen Z usurpers, the new Muslim group on the scene, Second Wife. It also straddles the Millennial-Gen X fault line, with punk pioneer Sister Squire (a cameo by Manzoor’s comedic character, Meera Sial from the mainstream sketch show Goodness Gracious Me) appalled by the political emptiness of Lady Parts’ lyrics: “You’re a fierce bunch of Muslim women and you don’t even have to hide it … You have a platform here … What are you saying?”
The band members may be confused about who they are, but their sitcom isn’t. We Are Lady Parts progresses into its second series with a combination of carefree aplomb and anarchic enthusiasm that is itself a lot punk. The show’s surreal flights of fancy now mesh particularly well with the new theme of music industry falsification, resulting in instant anthems like Malala Made Me Do It and Glass Ceiling Feeling fit to sit alongside the classic Bashir With The Good Beard from series one.
We can handle more music. Compared to similar sitcom-musicals, Girls5eva or Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, We Are Lady Parts feels sparse on songs. But on the other hand, it reflects the happily domestic nature of their composition, born out of jam sessions with the showrunner and her siblings. And if the main criticism we can level at a show is that we like everything it does but want more… well, that’s hardly a criticism, is it?
The second series doesn’t up the ante, but takes the tried and tested comedic components of the show and uses them to build an emotionally satisfying payoff once again. So don’t be surprised if you find yourself a little teary in the series’ closing moments as you contemplate the transcendent power of female friendship and electric guitar riffs. This is a show that is so much more than the sum of its (female) parts.
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