Possible spoilers ahead!
The new Peacock comedy series “We Are Lady Parts,” centers around a fictional London punk act called Lady Parts made up of young Muslim women: Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), Bassist Bisma (Faith Omole), Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), and band manager Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse), more on them in a bit.
As the season opens, we learn that the group hopes to audition for a big festival, but they need a new lead guitarist to take their sound to the next level. The desperate group finds a new band member in a shy microbiology grad student (and the show’s protagonist), Amina (Anjana Vasan).
Alright, so the truth is, I wasn’t planning to sign up for Peacock anytime soon. Not just because I think it’s a stupid name for a streaming service, but mainly because the app wasn’t available on Amazon. But that changed last week so I decided to see what (if anything) Peacock had to offer. After seeing the trailer for “We Are Lady Parts” I thought the premise had potential and decided to give the first episode a shot (it was free after all). What I wasn’t expecting was for the show to be so damn funny, that I signed up on the sport just so I could watch the rest of the season that day.
There is a lot to love about “We Are Lady Parts: The dialogue is sharp and funny, the music is shocking good, and the characters are just amazing. And what I loved best about the show is that all of these young Muslim women are all treated as leads. None of them felt like supporting characters, and after finishing the season I felt like I knew them all quite well. It helps that the showrunners went out of their way to make them all interesting and funny with regular lives and relationships outside of the band.
Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), is the band’s brash frontwoman, works a day job at a butcher’s shop, and has trouble committing to her boyfriend. But as the season goes on, we learn there is much more to her than what we see in the first episode. Then there’s bassist Bisma (Faith Omole), the only mother in the group, she’s also a comic book creator who wrote and drew a comic about “a group of women who all become homicidal maniacs when they’re on their period.” Meanwhile, drummer surly Ayesha (Juliette Motamed) drives an Uber, often blasting metal to drown out rude customers. Meanwhile, band manager Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse) is rumored to wear a face-covering because she’s in hiding, but she hypes up the band using skills learned hawking lingerie.
But most of the season is driven by the story of (Anjana Vasan). It’s through her that we experience the band’s journey and how she navigates living two lives. Early on we see she’s a skilled guitarist, but vomit-inducing stage fright has always kept her from going public with the guitar chops she learned by emulating folkie heroes like Don McLean. But she agrees to join Lady Parts for an audition in exchange for a setup with Ayesha’s hot brother Ahsan (Zaqi Ismail). However, the experience of playing punk songs with other Muslim women reveals how much she has in common with this band of misfits.
From what I’ve read, the entire ensemble plays their instruments, and it shows. All the performances in the show are natural, and all the women seem to be having fun playing together.
Some songs are covers, like Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5” and Radiohead’s “Creep.” But others are original songs written by series director Nida Manzoor and her siblings Shez Manzoor, Sanya Manzoor, and Benjamin Fregin. Their songs include “Voldemort Under My Headscarf” and”Bashir with the Good Beard.” Each track has a catchy hook and balances humor with heartache.
At only six half-hour episodes, “We Are Lady Parts” is short, and doesn’t waste time. Every episode was got better and better to the point that my wife and I had binged the entire season before noon. The show is funny from the heart and does a brilliant job making these women some of the most captivating characters on tv. “we Are LadyParts” is a fantastic show that deserves more attention, so go check it out!
“We Are Lady Parts” final grade: A