'We Are Lady Parts' review: British drama captures the spirit of punk rock

WHAT IT'S ABOUT This British series from writer-director Nida Manzoor follows the fictional punk band Lady Parts, comprised of Muslim women from the United Kingdom. As the season begins, they add an unlikely final piece to the outfit: lead guitar player Amina (Anjana Vasan), a PhD student studying microbiology who teaches guitar to children, is desperate for a husband and cannot perform live at all thanks to a longstanding case of stage fright.

The band also includes lead singer Saira (Sarah Kameela Impey), drummer Ayesha (Juliette Motamed), bass player Bisma (Faith Omole) and manager Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse). The six-episode first season finds the characters navigating that familiar and always difficult balancing act of being true to their artistic selves while confronting the weight of social expectations.

Made for the UK's Channel 4, the series can be found in the United States on Peacock, NBC's streaming service.

MY SAY Early in "We Are Lady Parts," Amina's narration describes the band as fueled by "one part boredom, two parts identity crisis." That's a perfect encapsulation of the spirit of punk rock and the essence of the way in which Manzoor crafts the characters, with their songs like "Voldemort's Alive and He's Under My Headscarf."

Take Amina, for example: She lives in a pastel-colored world of engagement parties and dating apps; her friends have all found their future husbands but things just don't seem to be working out for her. She teaches guitar but can't perform herself, with that stage fright also wrapped up in a general sense that it's improper for a woman to pursue her musical passion.

Amina is funny and charming and a very good musician, but she can only show her true self in fantasy sequences: whether it's performing her own version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" with a chorus of sock puppets or imagining herself and her crush, handsome Asan (Zaqi Ismail), as characters in an old Hollywood romance.

Lady Parts offers Amina the chance to stop hiding this side of her, and to explore it with likeminded people. But, through a viewing of the season's first three episodes, Manzoor rejects easy characterizations. She avoids the mistake of making it seem like a black-and-white dichotomy between this band life and the repressive drudgery of everyday existence.

The rebellion here that's so fundamental to punk music is, instead, turned inward — it materializes in the characters pushing back against that negative inner voice that wants to cut you down and put you in your place. It's found in a protagonist learning to recognize that her alternative path is just as worthy and acceptable as the one she's crafted for herself in her mind.

Beyond the broad, expressive humor and the colorful stylistic touches, it's the forever war between self-confidence and self-doubt that defines this story of Amina and her bandmates.

BOTTOM LINE "We Are Lady Parts" captures the spirit of punk rock in a way that's both entertaining and resonant.