Menopause doesn’t feel so funny when you’re in the heat of it, but this musical leans hard into tongue-in-cheek silliness, cheesy jokes and physical comedy, generating such a sense of shared commiseration that the laughter feels medicinal.

Reviews usually kick off with a short blurb that delivers some idea of the plot. This show makes that tricky, as it barrels along with no narrative engine to speak of. The action is set in a department store, the rounded architecture and beige, taupe and fawn colour scheme exuding Myer or David Jones vibes. There’s a mannequin, four changeroom doors and a table of bras marked down to half price.

This underwear sale is the meet-cute for our four champions of the change. Known only as ‘Professional Woman’ (Catherine Alcorn), ‘Housewife’ (Sally Bourne), ‘Earth Mother’ (Lena Cruz) and ‘Soap Star’ (Chelsea Gibb), the women tussle over bargains before it becomes clear that despite their wildly different lives, there is something that unites them. Menopause.

Structured less as a story and more as a series of parody musical numbers linked by spurts of dialogue, the action moves through the various departments of the store as the women bond over shared symptoms.

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The jukebox-style songbook is plucked straight from the 1960s-80s, an era perfect for recognition by the Boomer generation. But each musical number is given its own menopausal change, with its lyrics rewritten to illuminate the symptoms that bind these women together. ‘Chain of Fools’ becomes ‘The Change’, ‘Hot Stuff’ transforms into ‘Night Sweats’ and ‘I Will Survive’ is reincarnated into ‘I Am Awake’.

Writer and creator Janie Linders is truly a female Weird Al Yankovic when it comes to the art of hilarious musical parody, and director Cameron Mitchell has choreographed the show to allow each performer her chance to shine. The women’s performances and voices are all strong and they harmonise beautifully, with Catherine Alcorn’s powerhouse vocals and stage magnetism worthy of particular mention.

While the musical parodies are the heart of the show, the short pieces of dialogue are where each of the women brings her character to life. This is an American show, yet care has been taken to sprinkle enough Australian and Adelaidean jokes into the mix that it feels local. The ‘Housewife’ is from Gawler, ‘Earth Mother’ lives in Nimbin and the department store is located in Sydney.

The set (Frances Story) and lighting design (Jasmine Rizk) do heavy lifting in this show, the four-doored set playing the role of women’s bathroom and changerooms as well as various floors and departments within the store. The lighting works brilliantly to grant each musical number a sense of fresh backdrop.

Just as the four women represent broad and relatively stereotypical feminine categories, the songs work their way through a familiar checklist of menopausal symptoms: hot flushes, brain fog, weight gain, insomnia, night sweats, mood swings. Twenty-five years on from its debut, both the characters and the checklist might feel a little reductive. But what this simplicity reveals is how far the discussion of menopause has come.

At the turn of the century, ‘the change’ was still very much a taboo subject, spoken of in euphemism if spoken of at all. To put the symptoms on stage, and invite women to laugh about them, was a radical act.

In the last few years, menopause has finally stepped out of the shadows and into public discussion. Our understanding of it, especially the psychological symptoms associated with hormonal change, has grown enormously. Today, this musical feels a little like a turn-of-the-century time capsule. But this sense of datedness is a wonderful marker of how far the conversation around menopause has come.

But none of this troubled the audience. They absolutely loved it. In a packed house made up almost entirely of women, the show generated a palpable sense of joy and community – the knowing laughs, the delighted groans and the applause of women who had clearly been there too. Twenty-five years after Menopause The Musical put ‘the change’ on stage, there is something cathartic about laughing at it together.

Menopause the Musical continues at the Dunstan Playhouse until September 27