In this piece, performer and theatre-maker Joanna Holden — known for her physical comedy and decades of devising work with companies including Told by an Idiot and Cirque du Soleil — writes about the lived experience that inspired her new show Countess Dracula. Drawing on her own journey through menopause, she explores rage, absurdity, tenderness and transformation with humour, heart and the occasional urge to drink the blood of handsome commuters.
Not all women go to hell and back on their journey through the menopause, but it affected me so completely I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I felt I’d been turned upside down and inside out — so much so that I considered issuing a death certificate for the old me, and a new birth certificate for the new me.
The idea of devising a show with my friend, producer and fellow performer came to me on the train one day on my way to work. Resting my tired, increasingly myopic eyes — having been graciously offered a seat (did I look like I was about to give up the ghost altogether?) by a handsome young man — I daydreamed about sucking his blood for the testosterone (which had been so hard to obtain from my GP, and which I was nervous to take in case I grew mutton chops). Luckily for him, he got off at Euston! The testosterone would give me youth, vitality and a libido that had dropped off so dramatically that the very thought of rampant nights of passion seemed absurd — not ideal when you’re in a partnership. Luckily for him, the young man alighted at Euston!
It takes some getting used to. Everything is changing. I went to my GP with a lump “up there”. After close examination she told me it was my cervix that had dropped down. What do you mean, dropped down? I’m a hypochondriac — do I need to carry Tupperware in case it falls out? I was given pessaries for vaginal atrophy — not the kind of a-trophy you want to put on your mantelpiece! The dictionary definition: “gradual decline in effectiveness or vigour due to underuse or neglect.” The dictionary has a point. Once there were dreams and now it’s all creams, gels, pills, pessaries and patches. I had a friend who needed gas and air for a smear test because of the pain. Women panicking when there was an HRT shortage. Not wanting to go out in the evening because, well, I have to be up the next day! Day-to-day conversations became a never-ending game of charades — “What was that actor’s name in that… God, what was the film…” It’s a good job I’m not a brain surgeon. The hair stopped growing on my legs but stayed long as fetlocks around my ankles. My eyebrows have all but disappeared, making me look permanently surprised, at a time when all the beautiful young people have gone Brooke Shields. Brooke who?
I was doing a show playing Mrs Bennet and came on for the first scene. I opened my mouth and no words came out. I looked around into the panicked eyes of the other actors and, in that moment of hot flush and discombobulation, I didn’t know who I was. Three hundred people looking at me, staring into space — it was frightening. This had never happened before, except perhaps after an all-night party followed by a matinee, and then I could laugh it off. This time I felt shame and embarrassment, and time stood still. Functioning well in the workplace brings its own anxieties, but I survived. I was shaken, but I got through it. There’s a message in that, in itself.
I knew I was on a journey I couldn’t stop, and there are choices to be made: HRT, therapy, spending hundreds of pounds on herbs and potions that bombard me on Facebook — the algorithms pinpointing me from all angles. Mental-health programmes, fitness fads, yam creams, expensive mushrooms, to name a few — not unlike the garlic, holy water and crosses levelled at Dracula.
This “horror” story — this monster inside me that wanted to shout and scream sometimes for no apparent reason, this yearning to drink blood to transport me back to who I once was — is what drew me and the creative team to Countess Dracula.
Our wonderful director, Debs Newbold, is menopausal; Jack of Of The Jackal has a partner in her forties. It’s everywhere, of course. Dracula says, “I am coming for all of your women,” and of course so is the menopause.
I pitched the idea to Jack and he ran with it — and has done a lot of the running. He read Dracula first (I couldn’t concentrate long enough) and we began to explore the parallels between Count Dracula — the association with the moon, the loneliness, the desperate need to stay the same forever, the charm and the power. To harness this figure, to be allowed to express the inner madness, the rage, the horror. What would it be like for a 57-year-old woman to play that part?
In our collaborative way of working, we write on our feet, playing in the room with each other — with images, provocations and materials. Everyone is the writer and maker, and we all share our experiences. By this I mean the performers, the director, the designer, the stage manager, the lighting designer, the wonderful women who attended the workshops and played with us, and of course the audience who will receive and perceive the material.
This is a portrayal of one woman’s experience. I cannot say it is finished, as the journey isn’t finished. It is the beginning of an exploration — a time to be seen and acknowledged and understood. It’s a transition at a time when many women have teenagers, ageing parents, continued pressure at work, and pressure from the media to be at the top of your game always. One is changed by it, and it’s a great learning. All I can say is: I hope I remember my lines!
Countess Dracula will run at Camden People’s Theatre from 29 October – 1 November
2025. More information about te show and tickets can be found here .
