#Hagpower: One does not simply walk into the menopause.
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Game of Crones at The Albany Saturday 7 March 2026.
Review by Amanda Burden
Game of Crones at The Albany. Women of a certain… ahem… vintage (cough50scough) will remember the all-encompassing, female-only girlhood cult of the Brownies in the 80s. Looking back, how did we not realise we were in a cult? The signs were all there: secret symbols to identify fellow members, all-powerful leaders (Brown Owl, I’m looking at you), and ritualistic initiation ceremonies. It was that initiation that sprang to mind while watching the fabulous comedy show Game of Crones at the Albany Theatre.
You may recall the ceremony. A story about a girl helping her ill mother with the housework leads her to a magical pond to summon a sprite (a concept suspiciously similar to the House Elves of Harry Potter, J K Rowling). The recruit is placed before the “pond” - a mirror hastily unhooked from Brown Owl’s bathroom - and instructed to chant:
“Twist me and turn me and show me the elf,
I looked in the water and there saw… myself.”
And just like that, the tween is gently ushered into a lifetime of self-sacrifice, guilt and unpaid domestic labour — the full starter pack for girls growing up in the 80s.
The brilliant duo Abigail Dooley and Emma Edwards pick up that story forty years later, when those same hopeful recruits are confronting their next great challenge: menopause, the Western world’s brutal built-in obsolescence clause.
Reimagining the “change of life” as an epic Game of Thrones-style quest, the pair must cross the Desert of Disappointment, sail the Sea of Apologies, and edge across the treacherous Bridge of Indifference in search of freedom on the other side.
Along the way they face formidable enemies: the Sorry Sirens, doomed to a life of CONTRITE remorse, two snake-oil carnival barkers peddling miracle wrinkle potions, and the ultimate villain Old Age itself. Their weapons include the magical Cloak of Invisibility (a beige M&S cardi) and the ferocious Tongue Sharpener, which finally grants women permission to say what they really think.
The result is sharp, irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny. Beneath the jokes lies a clever, quietly furious observation: when the hormonal maelstrom of menopause hits, many women start questioning the roles they’ve spent decades playing as society’s emotional shock absorbers, only to find themselves politely sidelined the moment their outer shell starts to crack.
The characters are glorious. Oracles appear as a Princess Margaret-esque figure in a pac-a-mac and wellies, while the benevolent gods arrive as a three-headed deity made up of Vivienne Westwood, Kathy Burke and Dolly Parton, a tripartite anyone in their right minds would happily worship.
Game of Crones is a breath of fresh air, particularly welcome on a hot-flash-ridden evening. Whoever’s currently commissioning television should sign these women immediately. Embrace the inner Hag!
If this show proves anything, it’s that the real power move in midlife is finally saying to society: “Actually… I’m not sorry.”
See what else is coming to The Albany Theatre: https://www.albanytheatre.co.uk/
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