new comedy drama 'The Change' reveals more about menopausal Linda who thinks she has dementia

They used to say that life begins at 40. Maybe, as we’re all supposedly living a wee bit longer, that should be 50.

Bridget Christie might agree. Not that she was exactly slumbering beforehand. Since starting her stand-up career in 2004, she’s been a finalist in the Funny Women Awards (and was described by the its founder, Lynne Parker, as “one of the most influential funny women who has ever entered our competition”), won the coveted Edinburgh Comedy Award, bagged a number of trophies for her radio work, written books and penned columns for numerous national newspapers.

But, as we all know, it’s appearances on TV that really push folk into the spotlight, and although she’d popped up on various shows in the past, her participation in the 13th series of Taskmaster – which occurred shortly before she turned 51 – introduced her to a whole new audience.

“It was such fun, honestly,” she wrote on her website. “There’s a really tall big man and a smaller one who is also tall but doesn’t look it compared to the other massive one.

“We had fun things to do (tasks?) and then we looked back at what we did in the past in a studio with the people who did the same things but differently and the two tall men asked us about what we did.”

She must have been on Channel 4’s radar before then, but perhaps Christie’s efforts confirmed to its head honchos that they really should work with her more, because shortly after posting that, she wrote another blog, stating: “I can’t believe I’m saying this but yes, I’ve got my own series off the ground. I’m writing it now and we’re filming in the summer.”

That was in April 2022, and now, just over a year later, the fruits of her labours are upon us.

Christie wrote the scripts for The Change, a six-part comedy-drama in which she also takes the lead role of Linda, a 50-year-old working-class mother of two who, after forgetting what a shoe is called, becomes convinced she has early onset dementia. However, she’s actually going through the menopause, and having that confirmed by a doctor sparks something within – prompting her to head off on her trusty Triumph motorbike on a journey of self-discovery.

It takes her to the Forest of Dean, where Linda comes face-to-face with some very unusual characters…

“Bridget pitched the show with the tag line ‘Shirley Valentine meets Deliverance. With Pigs’. She had us at pigs,” laughs Fiona McDermott, Channel 4’s head of comedy. “We’re so thrilled to be working with her and be able to have a woman like Linda at the centre of a show that so brilliantly tackles big themes – feminism, health, identity, class and the natural world – but wraps them up with Bridget’s signature charm, curiosity and comic expertise. It’s a timely show from a comic at the height of her powers.”

Liza Tarbuck, Jim Howick, Jerome Flynn, Omid Djalili and Susan Lynch co-star, but this is certainly Christie’s baby.

And if this is the kind of thing she produces as her life ‘begins’, we can’t wait to see what follows as she matures even further.