Back to knock some sense into the nation with their brand new show, Fifty Shades of Beige, the Grumpy Old Women return to Sussex as part of a 42 date UK tour. Perrier Award winning comedian, writer and original star of Grumpy Old Women Jenny Eclair will be joined by fellow recruits Susie Blake (Mrs Brown’s Boy’s, Coronation Street) and actress / singer Kate Robbins (Where The Heart Is, Casualty) in an orgy of fury and big laughs in over two hours of no nonsense comedy.
Just before she boarded the tour bus to head to the next date, I caught up with Jenny Eclair to find out what a grumpy old man, like me, can expect from their new show…
So Jenny, what can grumpy old men expect from The Grumpy Old Women?
Well, you can expect to have a better time that you might imagine, really. A lot of men come along to the show thinking that’s it’s somehow going to be worse than root canal work and it isn’t. As the show goes on we can see the men visibly relaxing and really having a great time.
You are outnumbered, as you might expect, so be prepared to be heavily outnumbered by the ladies, but if you’re lonely, or a widower, maybe divorced or maybe you just haven’t got a girlfriend at the moment, it’s the ideal place to meet a new lady friend. There are loads of them and they’re all drinking dry white wine – You never know, you might get lucky in the bar!
Is it a 42 date mobile pick-up joint that you’re running then?
Well, no, not for me but it could be for the men that come along. The men in our audiences are something like a very rare eagle and they do tend to get very nicely treated by the ladies. They don’t get any attention from us on stage because, quite frankly, we’re not that interested in you and it’s not that kind of show.
Well, I’m sure you’re too busy discussing big pants…
There is a section of the show that is “pants related”, yes, but it’s so much more than that. The first half of the show is split up into the 24 hour clock and it shows how the “Grumpies” divide their day up and why we’re so permanently exhausted. That part is all to do with technology, shopping, cooking, grooming and all that sort of thing and then the second half deals with the bigger issues which basically cover life, sex and death.
In that order?
Yes!
Have you done the Grumpy tour with Suzie and Kate before?
I have with Susie, she did Grumpy 2 – Chin Up Britain with us which we toured nationally before taking it into the West End but Kate is a new recruit.
Is she as grumpy as the rest of you?
Oh yes, she’s learning very fast!
How easy is it to write a show like Fifty Shades of Beige?
Well, the thing is that I’ve been in this business for 30 years now and I’ve been writing books, shows and stand up all that time and I’ve done radio dramas and things like that so what we have here is a hybrid because it’s part sketch show, part stand-up comedy and part monologue.
I co-write it with Judith Holder, who was the executive on the “Grumpy Old Women” TV series, and this is our third show. They are all entirely different and they are very well supported by a brilliant director and a superb costume and set designer. As soon as we saw some of the props and the whole look of the show, we really had to take our hats off to our designer, who was given about 30 quid from the producers to make us look good and she has done the most remarkable job!
We even have an exploding shed, so there’s quite a lot expected out of or budget.
Are there poignant parts to contrast with the comedy?
There are a couple of “moments”, yes, where I have basically written about things that I genuinely mean and things that really pi** me off. I hate the whole chocolate and women thing – it drives me crazy. You’re lucky because men don’t get targeted by advertisers like women do. The advertisers kind of dangle chocolate in front of us, like it’s some “opiate” to stupid women who need somehow to be “calmed” by it.
It must be nice to get to say what you really think.
Oh yes, and it’s great to have a stage to say it from. Fifty Shades of Beige is a veritable orgy of saying what we think!
The Return of The Grumpy Old Women – Fifty Shades of Beige can be seen at the Assembly Hall Theatre , Tunbridge Wells on Thursday May 15th at 8.00pm with tickets available from the box office on 01892 530613 or online at www.assemblyhalltheatre.co.uk