Theatre blogStageWhy I loved Menopause the Musical - and why the critics really hated it
This crowd-pleasing, taboo-breaking show doesn't deserve such damning and prudish reviews.
The only menopause comedy in town: Su Pollard, Amanda Symonds, Samantha Hughes and Miquel Brown. Photograph: Joel Ryan/PA
Any production that calls itself "Something - the Musical" is unabashedly announcing to its audience: "We're cheesy, and we know it." Any critic familiar with this theatre convention should not have expected Menopause the Musical to be highbrow. Any women who skip the show after reading the reviews will miss their only opportunity to see older female actors in starring roles talking publicly about the menopause.
Rarely does a play come along that is specifically about "women's issues"; even less often is it anything but an earnest epic. I know this because I perform the touring sketch show Adventures in Menstruating. We need to talk about menstruation and menopause because women are still expected to keep quiet about our "special days" or "the change". When Menopause the Musical came to town, I decided to show some support for what I considered not quite a sister production, but something of a favourite auntie production. I went to a matinee preview and, since I'm not expecting the menopause any time soon, was sneaking glances around the theatre to gauge reactions from the target audience. The songs seemed to make light of what I saw as the more negative physical manifestations of menopause, but older women around me were nodding and murmuring their agreement. Despite the fact that I normally can't stand musicals, I went home buzzing.
But that was during the previews. Then the show opened, the reviews came in, and it wasn't pretty. When the Telegraph's front-page panning hit the streets, I happened to be near the Shaw Theatre and couldn't resist heading over to see what was happening. The audience members were flocking in, happy as anything, with the same bounce in their strides as when I'd been among them. After the show began, the box office was still fielding a seemingly unending stream of bookings for the next several weeks. Hopefully, this will continue.
I'm not saying the show was a work of artistic genius, or that all the reviews were wrong, but I do question the possibly subconscious feelings behind the more vitriolic responses. The main complaints were drawn from a litany of common critiques. Clunky dialogue links between songs and broadly drawn characters? No! Top 40 hits loosely strung together into a not-quite-plot just to pull in reminiscent punters? Surely, you jest! Simplistic rhymes, throwaway lyrics and uninspired choreography? In a musical revue? Never! Merchandising and corporate sponsorship! The thieving bastards - they should be giving the profits away! There was no need, however, to bait Germaine Greer into defining feminism for the masses yet again.
I feel something different was behind a lot of the more acidic grief given to Menopause the Musical. I have a gut suspicion, based on a few negative responses to my own work, that the reviews were so scathing because menopause is still a no-go topic. I feel like the popular success, despite the critical derision, is also in direct response to the fact that the show simply puts menopause about a bit. People can pretend it's already slipped through taboo and out the other side while no one was looking, but I think they're fooling themselves in order to avoid a topic that's still very much out of their comfort zones, and, in the case of most of the reviewers of this show, outside of their experience.
Perhaps British critics are more mainstream and prudish than they'd like to think. Several seem to have been outraged by the business of a pink microphone representing a vibrator onstage. The women of a certain age saw the funny side, and Su Pollard did a fabulous job of singing into the pink mic. (And that really was all she did with it. Honest.) I can see how one or two of the male reviewers may have felt so alienated by the show that they lost their objectivity. Perhaps they felt as invisible and put out to pasture as post-menopausal women are typically made to feel, particularly in the arts. For a change, it was the women in the audience who felt represented, acknowledged and celebrated.
Maybe the production will improve upon the technical and artistic criticisms, and I hope it does. Audiences shouldn't be patronised, but box-office takings shouldn't be dismissed either. This is a novelty show with staying power, because the concept of public celebration and commiseration about menopause is still fresh. It would be fantastic if it weren't the only menopause comedy show in town, but while it is, it's cornered the market. Reviews that try to quash it only serve to discourage theatre on this and other taboo topics from continuing to emerge and challenge.
Leave it be, and encourage competition. It doesn't need critical acclaim, but perhaps the next show about the menopause will receive some. And maybe I'll write it.
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