Menopause the Musical, by Jeanie Linders, is coming from the US to London. Should we cheer or not? Apparently it's hilarious and celebrates hormonal baby-boomers who gossip about everything, "from chocolate binges to HRT".
Here we go again, banging on about the rotting body and ignoring the developing mind. It's all going to be dried-up vaginas, menorrhagia and buckets of blood, crumbling bones, boiling sweats, incontinence and memory loss. Oh ha ha, here comes decline and death.
Of course I don't want to be a prune-faced spoilsport. Why not have a laugh while your body cracks up, leaks, stinks, wrinkles and sags. It is comforting to share news about all these grisly bodily functions and know that you're not the only one. But what about the andropause? Bet you didn't even know what it was. It's the men's version. What happens to them, we wonder? What shrivels and dries up? Come on chaps. If you're going to go to a musical and hear all about us, then how about telling us all about you?
Meanwhile, this musical is apparently a celebration of the Change. It begins with the ladies fighting over a black lace bra, which shows that you can still look erotic and better still, you can still have sex. Which is perhaps why I feel rather po-faced about it.
Some of us don't want to. Think freedom, girls. Forget black brassieres, rise above bodily functions - then they won't bother you so much. Take up an instrument, preferably a musical one. Music is better than sex and better still, is unaffected by the menopause.
Still I mustn't rant on. It may be marvellous fun and become a grassroots-movement and 'sisterhood', as it has in America. I'm not sure whether that's a recommendation or not.
