The Cutprice Guignol

I am profoundly and deeply upset today.

Because, as of last night, I finished the recently-released second season of writer-director Nida Manzoor’s unbelievably brilliant musical comedy, We Are Lady Parts, and now I truly have no idea what I’m going to do with my life. Following the titular band, Lady Parts (performed by Anjana Vasan, Sarah Kameela Impey, Juliette Motamed, and Faith Omole, along with Lucie Shorthouse as their manager) , an all-woman Muslim punk group from London, We Are Lady Parts is a little bit of everything, but most of all, itself – the kind of show that sort of insists you put down everything else in your life to enjoy it properly, and I was more than happy to place my whole existence on hold for three to five business days while I indulged myself.

And look, let’s get the obvious out of the way: We Are Lady Parts, by it’s very existence, is a ground-breaking show. Any mainstream media that centres the experiences of Muslim women is: but this one, in particular, isn’t just boiling down these people’s lives to the barest minimum oppression or struggles or suffering that we’re so used to seeing on mainstream TV. No, it’s a riotous, outrageous, experimental, hilarious (if you didn’t YELL with laughter at the song Nobody’s Gonna Honour Kill My Sister But Me, I don’t know what to tell you) sitcom that doesn’t spend all it’s time hand-wringing over the scant issues that have been deemed newsworthy regarding Muslim women – it takes itself seriously as much as it takes the piss, weaving an unmistakably British sense of humour and a brilliant ear for punk through the intersectional stories of the band. While I could bang on for ten thousand more words about why this matters, I think that point is better made by people who’ve actually lived the experience of Muslim womanhood – here are some great articles on the impact and importance of We Are Lady Parts that say it more impactfully than I ever could.

But what I would like to get into a little in this article is how much I admire the genre-bending and meta-textual elements in We Are Lady Parts. I’m a sucker for anything that has the nerve to give a little wink to the fourth wall, and WALP, drawing so heavily on movie musicals, is well-placed to wear it’s meta-narratives on it’s sleeve. The first season mostly uses these meta moments to indulge in fantastically fun, referential cutaway gags (Anjana Vasan might be my favourite comedy performer in the world right now, truly) and to really drive home the emotion behind the musical numbers, but the second season really pushes those boundaries to explore self-censorship as Lady Parts grapple with a more mainstream status, and how that limits what they can express.

The most impressive moment in this season, for me, was when Lady Parts lead singer Saira (Impey) tries to create a new song for their album that addresses more serious issues, but finds herself unable to get the words out:

The way this scene is executed is such a brilliant metaphor for the pressures of self-censorship: it’s quite literally an outside force, in this case, the sound design of the TV show, that renders Saira unable to speak the words she wants to. It’s such a smart way of breaking the fourth wall as a means of furthering the story, the production of the show serving as a stand-in for the cultural forces that insist Saira keep her mouth shut about certain issues. For all WALP has the traditional comedy thing down, it’s these more experimental moments that really elevate the show to brilliance for me.

We Are Lady Parts is, put simply, one of the best shows of the decade so far. Nida Manzoor has such a command over her storytelling, and takes it to really interesting and unique places that make use of meta-narratives to expand on her rich themes and characters. Now, if you’ll leave me to my grieving period of having accidentally finished this show far too quickly, I am going to begin the countdown to season three.

Have you been watching We Are Lady Parts? If not, why not (I’m mostly joking)? Let me know what you think of the show in the comments below!

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(header image via Channel 4)