Drama | Comedy | MUSICAL | Fringe | Archive | HOME

Theatreguide.London
www.theatreguide.london

Follow @theatreguidelon


Sightseeing Pass logo


 The Theatreguide.London Review



Menopause - The Musical
Shaw Theatre       Summer 2007

Four women of A Certain Age sing, joke and moan about The Change, and an audience that is at least 98% female and largely of A Certain Maturity has a grand old time.

And, to tell the truth, as one of perhaps a dozen men in the audience, I couldn't help enjoying it as well.

Jeanie Linders' musical comedy, which has been a hit almost everywhere else in the English-speaking world, finally reaches London in a polished, high-energy production that should run as long as waves of women continue to age disgracefully.

The four performers are introduced as archetypes - the harried businesswoman (Miquel Brown), fading starlet (Samantha Hughes), former hippie (Amanda Symonds) and provincial housewife (Su Pollard). But the characterisations are all-but-dropped pretty quickly, as each of the four takes a turn in a rotation of singing Linders' topical new lyrics to pop classics, with the other three rotating into back-up singers.

And so we get laughter and howl-of-recognition inducing lyrics like these (I'm sure you can supply the melodies):

'I heard it through the grapevine/You'll no longer see thirty-nine.'

'In the guest room or on the sofa/ My husband sleeps tonight.'

'I'm having a hot flash, a tropical hot flash.'

'I wish we all could be sane and normal girls.'

'Thank you, doctor. Thank, thank you, doctor.'

'No matter what I eat/ There's always cellulite on/ My thighs.'

You get the idea. The between-song bits and jokes are fairly lame ('The last personal trainer I had - I had'), but they're brief and soon give way to another rousing song.

The (all-male) backing band rocks, director Michael Larsen keeps the energy level high, choreographer Patty Bender wittily alludes to the Motown style of back-up singer syncopation, and everyone stays pretty much instep most of the time.

This isn't Hamlet, but short of a male strip club I can't think of a more foolproof Good Night Out for the girls, and one that the occasional male dragged along will enjoy too.

Gerald Berkowitz

Receive alerts when we post new reviews

Return to Theatreguide.London home page
.


Marquee TV Arts on Demand. Bring the Arts Home. Subscribe.
Review of  Menopause The Musical - Shaw Theatre 2007