‘I dreamed of being a brown Bob Dylan’: We Are Lady

Her wildly successful sitcom about a Muslim punk band is back, better than before – and features the Nobel laureate in a Stetson. This time round, the writer-director is more confident than ever

When it came to penning the second series of We Are Lady Parts, Nida Manzoor started with a song. “All I knew was that it was going to be called Malala Made Me Do It,” she says. Next, she did what she has always done: she took it to her brother and sister, Shez and Sanya – who also co-wrote the songs for the first series of Manzoor’s gloriously idiosyncratic, spoof-laden sitcom about an all-female Muslim punk band – and told them she wanted it to be in the style of … a barn-stomping western. “I listened to Steven Spielberg on Desert Island Discs and he was talking about The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” she says, “and I became obsessed with that song. It’s so catchy, so full of storytelling. I thought I’d love to do this amazing hype track that all these western heroes get but do it about Malala Yousafzai. My siblings really ran with it.”

So much so that the finished song – Coen brothers-esque, extremely silly – features a cameo by Yousafzai as you’ve never seen her before. In a jewel-fringed white Stetson. On a horse. With an almost completely straight face. “I hadn’t thought I would actually get Malala,” Manzoor says, “but I saw her talking about her love of Fawlty Towers, which I didn’t expect. I guess I saw her as this very serious figure, but oh my gosh, she’s so funny.” Manzoor wrote Yousafzai a letter asking if she would come on board. “It’s very silly but she was so game and such a joy. She made everyone feel so comfortable on set. We had such a laugh.”