Bridget Christie confronts the menopause on stage

Dates include Saturday, September 9 – Brighton Dome; Sunday, September 24 – Portsmouth New Theatre Royal; Thursday, October 12 – Horsham’s Capitol; Sunday, October 22 – Guildford, Yvonne Arnaud; and Thursday December 7 – Worthing, Connaught Theatre

Bridget says she is hot, but not in a good way. She leaks blood, sweats and thinks that Chris Rock is the same person as The Rock. She cannot ride the motorbike she bought to combat her mid-life crisis because of early osteoarthritis in her hips and RSI in her wrist, and she wonders why there are so many films, made by men, about young women discovering their sexuality – but none about middle-aged women forgetting theirs.

As she says, Who Am I? is a menopause laugh-a-minute with a confused, furious, sweaty lady who is annoyed by everything.

It comes as Bridget enjoys success with her new Channel 4 show, The Change is a landmark moment in small screen entertainment. As well as being funny, moving and mysterious, it’s the first time the menopause has made its way onto main-stream TV.

“It evolved over a long period of time. I wanted to write a story that I wasn’t seeing on screen. I wanted to see more middle-aged women having adventures, not being defined by their relationships or their families, and I’d always wanted to write something based in the Forest of Dean. But the central character, Linda, wasn’t going through the menopause when I first started writing it because I wasn’t going through the menopause – it was seven years ago. But I’m glad it took that long to commission because the story evolved organically and became a much richer, more satisfying one in the end. When I look at those earlier scripts, they were missing something. And that something was the menopause.”

“I wrote with particular people in mind, of course not knowing if they would come on board or not, but it was extremely helpful to imagine them saying the lines.”

Who Am I? is Bridget’s 13th show.