My Festival: Mariella Frostrup
The journalist and TV personality talks leeches to the vulva, getting chased around by Led Zeppelin's manager and her new Fringe show Cracking the Menopause.
There are thousands of shows in Edinburgh this month. Please tell us why we should come and see yours.
Well firstly it’s not just a show it’s the latest leap forward in the ongoing revolution in how we discuss, support and navigate perimenopause and beyond. By coming along you’re joining the ranks and lending your voice to the many out there making sure that our daughters are better advised than we were! But more than that the show Alice Smellie and I have written is funny, informative, shocking, surprising and works for anyone who knows someone who will experience menopause i.e EVERYONE! Plus the brilliant Gina Bellman is joining me in making her Fringe debut in multiple challenging roles including a talking vagina, a Goddess and a Victorian gynaecologist.
What will we learn from your show that we didn’t know before?
Why leeches to the vulva were once believed to be a ‘cure’ and all kinds of other hair-raising stories from the dark past, but also new science, the truth about HRT, menopause vs manopause, and the reason why we should be celebrating rather than dreading our Second Spring. Cracking the Menopause is sixty minutes of fun fuelled entertainment and facts.
Who or what was the biggest inspiration for your show?
A book I read by academic Louise Foxcroft called Hot Flushes, Cold Science and then my own two years of falling apart with anxiety and insomnia thanks to my total ignorance of symptoms and any helpful information about Menopause.
What’s the best review you’ve ever had, and the worst?
Reading your own reviews I realised long ago is a fool's game, as is self-Googling! I prefer to live in blissful ignorance of what strangers think about me.
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Who or what are you most excited about seeing this year?
There are so many great shows at the Gilded Balloon that I might never leave the building, where else can you catch Endometriosis: The Musical, Matt Forde and Michelle Shocked in one venue? But if I do venture forth I’d like to catch Roleplay produced by Francesca Moody of Fleabag fame, The Plot by writer/director Emma Howlett and bump into Ali Smith, Maggie O’Farrell and JK Rowling together in one bar at the same time.
Who do you most like spending time with in Edinburgh?
Luckily the person I’m there with. Gina is not only a talented actress but also one of my oldest friends and whenever we travel together we have mad adventures so she’s the perfect companion for exploring the city and the festival.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people.
I’m really quite lazy, I’m half Scottish and I was tape op on Simple Minds' second album.
What are the best and worst things that have happened to you at a festival?
Working at Knebworth when I was 16 and being chased from one side of the stage to the other by Led Zeppelin’s large bearded and lascivious manager Peter Grant was pretty scary. Conversely watching the gifted, heartwarming and genuinely decent Cat Stevens play all my favourite songs and some surprising new ones at Glastonbury a couple of years ago was a moment of pure joy. By the end of the gig my face was aching from smiling.
What’s the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?
Do you really want to know? Come to the show. Every mature woman knows the answer to that question.
Thanks for the interview! We’d like to buy you a drink. Where are we going and what are we drinking?
See you in the bar at the Gilded Balloon and maybe line me up a half of Guinness? Though at the end of the run I might need an Espresso Martini.
Mariella Frostrup: Cracking the Menopause, Gilded Balloon Teviot, 2.30pm, until 17 August
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