WHAT DID I COME IN HERE FOR?

It’s high time we celebrated the menopause in all its confusing and mysterious glory. Yes, I did say glory. In some cultures menopausal people are revered for having traversed menstruation and childbirth to reach a point where a break in monthly proceedings is welcomed. It’s not the end, it’s seen as a form of renewal.  

When I created Funny Women back in 2002, I was 46 and perimenopause came along soon after, although in heavy disguise. It wasn’t the endless late-night gigs and midnight kebabs that were to blame for my extreme tiredness and redistribution of body mass, but something else entirely. In a way, this saved me from the angst that surrounds workplace menopause, where awareness of the disabling symptoms is far more prevalent. I just got on with it.

Many of us will continue working on into our dotage and long past menopause, if not out of sheer necessity but because we love what we do. Scarily, with my own menopause and 20 years of running this business behind me, some of the women I met during the first years of the Funny Women Awards are now entering this life stage, having had successful comedy careers and, in some cases, families along the way.  

The real shocker for me is that Bridget Christie is 50 (how did that happen?!) and older than I was when I started all this craziness. And, oh joy, she’s shaking out her menopausal angst on stage and screen, and familiarising the world with the leaky, bloody, sweaty reality of it all. For aficionados of Bridget’s comedy, this is all done without the aid of an ant costume or her personification of the Witchfinder General, although the latter could easily have made a cameo appearance and metaphorically burnt a few menopausal women at the stake.

I recently saw Bridget’s new show Who Am I? at this year’s WOW Festival and, true to form, she packed all the punches you would expect from an angry, overheated menopausal mother of two teenagers who’s trying to remember why she’s on stage in front of several hundred people. It’s a brave, honest, and very funny look at what so many of us live through on an everyday basis.

Humour can play a much larger part in highlighting the narrative around menopause. I accept that a lot of the side effects aren’t remotely funny and really impact our physical and mental wellbeing. Yet, if we can make people laugh along with us then perhaps the world will cut us some slack when we forget why we walked into a certain room or opened the windows on the coldest day of the year. I foresee a brave new world of comedy ‘menosplaining’ before me!

Bridget is not alone in her plight to perform through the hot flushes and brain fog and there are other shows and acts tackling this topic – from Menopause the Musical (currently on tour) to pub landlady Dolly Slatemen’s Menopause Party (been and gone but more in planning). There’s some great advice out there too: a quick search of menopause on social media manifests hundreds of links, consultants, and specialists to steer you through this stage of life. Although nothing beats a good laugh.

I grew up in a time when periods and menopause were rarely discussed. Sanitary pads were hidden at the back of a dark linen cupboard, my mum had ‘visitors’ once a month and my nan had ‘funny turns’. It was a move on from women depicted in Victorian times suffering from ‘the vapours’ and hysteria but only just. With the likes of Bridget and many of her contemporaries talking about menopause on modern stages, there really is no excuse for this life stage to still be taboo.  

Bridget is also spreading her message wider by creating, writing, and starring in a new comedy-drama series called The Change for Channel 4. Longtime Funny Women collaborator and judge on our Awards, Morwenna Gordon, executive producer at Expectation is really excited to be working with Bridget to channel her brilliant comic voice into a narrative comedy.

“She’s putting the menopause at the heart of the story, against the beautiful, magical and at times unsettling backdrop of The Forest of Dean,” says Morwenna. “We’ve no doubt The Change will be a real treat for Channel 4 viewers.” I don’t doubt it either.

Meanwhile, fans of Bridget can watch her doing fun things with some other comedians in the next season of the award-winning show, Taskmaster, also on Channel 4. The menopause has never been so much fun!

Now, what was I writing about?

You can still catch Bridget’s show Who Am I? on selected dates throughout March and April at the Leicester Square Theatre, London, details here.