Bridget Christie's Jacket Potato Pizza: A Menopause-Fuelled Standup Show
Comedian Bridget Christie's latest touring production, Jacket Potato Pizza, offers audiences an entertaining ninety-minute exploration of life after menopause, delivered with her signature flair and heavy sarcasm. Currently performing at venues including the Bristol Beacon until 22nd May, the show represents a noticeable shift in Christie's comedic focus from the political fervour of her earlier work towards a more personal, contented perspective.
A Comedian Finding Her Happy Place
Christie's show emerges from what she describes as her "happy place" - serenely single, professionally triumphant with recent television success on Channel 4's The Change, and liberated by menopause from caring about almost anything. This freedom from concern provides rich comedic material that Christie mines effectively throughout the performance, though some critics note the show feels slightly less thrilling than her previous politically-charged work.
The production opens with a short first half that begins by contrasting quotations from Presidents Obama and Trump, though this proves somewhat misleading about the show's overall direction. More indicative of the evening's tone is an early routine where Christie re-enacts a story told by her menopausal friend, transforming a banal tale of a night out into what she describes as "a symphony of digressions, malapropisms and vocabulary tantalisingly out of reach."
Life Through a Menopausal Lens
Throughout Jacket Potato Pizza, Christie presents what life looks like for women in their fifties through her distinctive comedic lens. The material covers everything from recording bodily functions for friends on WhatsApp to reporting increasingly exotic medical symptoms to doctors. Christie portrays herself as socially invisible and entirely pleased about this development, contrasting eager-to-please younger versions of herself with her current incarnation that cares "not a jot" about social expectations.
One particularly memorable anecdote involves Christie indulging a date's improbable sexual fetish, while another finds her completely unconcerned when her gardener catches her eating cake directly from the bin. These routines showcase what the comedian describes as her "demob-happiness" - an infectious sense of liberation that permeates much of the show.
Strengths and Shortcomings in the Material
The production contains what critics describe as "peachy material," including a routine about the "thermonuclear obnoxiousness of 15-year-old girls" that Christie insists doesn't draw on her own family life. Her flair for constructing what one reviewer calls "mini-carnivals of her own ridiculousness" remains intact, with each routine building effectively upon the last.
However, some segments feel less polished than others. A routine connecting Alan Carr and The Traitors to ICE killings in Minnesota features what one critic describes as a "clunky segue" that doesn't quite justify the connection. Another joke about Jimmy Savile and adding clauses to her will feels somewhat arbitrary and unmoored from the show's broader themes.
The Political Edge That's Mostly Absent
Where Jacket Potato Pizza truly shines is in the occasional moments when Christie's political edge resurfaces. A later section taking issue with the television drama Adolescence demonstrates what one reviewer calls "the excitement of an opinion both passionate and provocative, ventured with her trademark 10-ton sarcasm." These moments feel palpably different from the rest of the show, suggesting that while Christie has found contentment in her personal life, her political consciousness hasn't entirely disappeared.
The show concludes with sobering words about the state of the world, though critics note that politics are seldom integrated into the comedy throughout most of the performance. This leaves audiences with what one review describes as "another effervescent show from Christie, if not - as is so often the case with this comic - an essential one."
A Placeholder Between More Substantial Works?
Some critics suggest Jacket Potato Pizza feels like "a placeholder of a show," lacking the fervour or clownish fury of Christie's best work. While consistently entertaining and delivered with her characteristic pop-eyed dismay during performance moments, the production doesn't reach the heights of her most politically engaged material.
Nevertheless, for fans of Christie's work or those interested in comedy exploring menopause and middle age from a female perspective, Jacket Potato Pizza offers plenty to enjoy. The show demonstrates that while inner peace and contentment might not always be gifts to the comedian, they can certainly provide fertile ground for humour when handled by a performer of Christie's calibre.
