Ivan Radford | On 25, Mar 2025

Season 2 premieres on 25th March 2025. This review is based on Season 1.

“The Hulk is the only menopausal role model in TV and film.” That’s the unmistakable sound of Bridget Christie getting her own TV series – and The Change doesn’t disappoint, in terms of laughter or truth.

The Channel 4 sitcom follows Linda (Christie), a wife, mother and retail professional, all of which means that she is, inevitably, entirely put-upon, overlooked and taken for granted. When she reaches 50, and her birthday party is more about her husband (Omid Djalili) than her, she reaches breaking point. And so she hops on to her motorbike and heads off into the sunset – well, the Forest of Dean – to get some space.

What she encounters is a rural community that’s at once a breath of fresh air and a stagnant whiff of outdated values. The population include all manner of men, from The Verderer (the always-hysterical Jim Howick), an angry radio DJ who rants about the male-hating state of modern society, pub local Tony (Paul Whitehouse), who smarms and sleazes his way through every conversation, and Pig Man (national treasure Jerome Flynn), a reclusive man of nature who surprisingly doesn’t bring sex or sexism into their warm, sincere friendship. There are also the Eel Sisters (Monica Dolan and Susan Lynch), who run the local eel cafe that has been proudly serving eels and mash potato to men since the 1800s. The only seemingly sane one of the bunch is Joy (Tanya Moodie), who has her own slot on the radio and helps Linda get to know and understand the locals.

As a story of a fish out of a water in an eccentric place, The Change is familiar but funny, thanks to a stellar cast – led by the impeccable, impatient Christie – and some wonderfully silly and bizarre encounters. But Bridget Christie’s writing goes further than that to create a celebration of women, and particularly older women – throughout, Linda is putting up with the menopause, and giving us – and everyone else – a refreshingly candid commentary on her experience. Society and the media have long been terrible at acknowledging the menopause or woman over a certain age – Davina McCall’s recent documentary was a welcome rebuttal of that trend – and The Change finds humour amid the honesty and frustrations of Linda’s hot flushes.

Christie also scathingly shines a spotlight on the gendered nature of domestic workloads, with Linda literally writing down how much time she’s spent (3.5 million minutes, to be exact) doing household chores. (“You have to dust lamps?” exclaims Djalili’s amusingly incompetent spouse, who quietly undergoes a journey of education.) Meanwhile, her older sister (the hilarious Liza Tarbuck) shouts at her down the phone to stop whining and just get on with being a woman.

Leaving no excuse for anyone to be ignorant of that imbalance any more, The Change balances such acerbically sharp observations with a sentimental streak: Linda’s reason to go to the Forest of Dean is to unearth a time capsule she left there as a 10-year-old girl.

The result builds to a surprisingly moving conclusion involving eels, a folk festival, Wicker Man-like rituals and a sense of inter-generational acceptance and learning. “May all your transitions be joyful!” she repeats multiple times, wearing an outfit that would leave her sister speechless. We all go through change in life, Christie’s heartfelt comedy reminds us. Things are sometimes a little too neat, as Linda drops wisdom bombs on everyone she meets, but there’s something charming about a sitcom that simply lets a female protagonist win the argument for once. That’s a welcome change, indeed.

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