There were only a handful of males at the opening night in the Theatre Royal, as a capacity audience had a great night out, at Menopause The Musical. The excitement was tangible and there was a great party atmosphere as Adele King (Twink), Linda Martin, Eithne McGuinness and a big momma rocker Michele Mais entertained and wowed an audience ready to have fun. Women have a better, more uninhibited sense of fun and they loved the twenty or so pastiche songs on the subject of menopause and girls doin’ it for themselves.
The songs are mostly great sixties numbers with cleverly adjusted lyrics to cover many aspects of the menopause – hot flushes, the change, fading memory, fading looks, prozac moments, dripping sweat, soaking nighties, things to do with a fan, look in a mirror and see your mother-moments, bottomless handbags and vibrator moments in the best possible taste.
From the opening bra wars at Brown Thomas we meet the familiar Twink as the housewife from Mulhuddart and the Mulhuddart National School Netball Theme. She is joined by Linda Martin as a soapstar from Fair Clinic and Eithne McGuinness, the eternal Earth Mother and New Yorker, Michele Mais as Professional Woman or Power Woman in the American version.
While it might not be the best piece of musical theatre ever written, the cast work their costumes off, to entertain and relate to audiences. And it takes stars to sell shows like this and Linda Martin and Twink deliver in a big way. Eithne McGuinness shone but it was the big presence and vocal power of Michele Mais that wowed me a lot of the time.
Twink is a crowd pleaser and audiences know and love her and she delivered with My Thighs and a howlsville of a routine with a flimsy thong for flossing your teeth. Her Anne Summers Vibrator routine with a pink microphone was side-splitting as she has a great orgasmic wicked laugh.
By the end of the night members of the audience were dancing on stage as the rest stood, clapped and danced in the seats looking for a hero at the end of the night and they were the heroes as they went home happy and flushed, no doubt.
