Clots opens Tuesday 20th October at The Bread and Roses Theatre, exploring PMDD in a darkly funny way. Learn more about what to expect:
1. What inspired you to create CLOTS?
I experience really bad periods, and I was on a particularly heavy one when I knew I wanted to create a comedy show about what women go through. I’ve often felt that society looks away from periods, as if they’re something we should be embarrassed about. A universal experience for girls at school is passing sanitary towels to each other under our school blazers as if we’re dealing Class A drugs!
I wanted to create a piece of theatre that reflects that absurdity and brings it into the light. Periods are something that half the population experience, yet we still whisper about them. I want women to feel seen, to recognise themselves in the ridiculousness of it all, and for men to come and discover something new. If we can laugh about it, maybe we can finally start talking about it!
2. How do you balance the darker themes with humour?
It’s an important balance. The opening 15 minutes are pure clowning, with no words spoken, just blood-stained sanitary towels and a giant vagina! It’s ridiculous, it’s physical, and it’s funny, but it also represents the silence that surrounds menstruation and women’s health issues.
As Izzie begins to speak, you start to understand the pressure of trying to cope with everyday life whilst dealing with PMDD, PMS and heavy periods. There’s something quite heartbreaking about feeling like you’re falling apart inside whilst having to pretend everything is fine on the outside. The comedy allows us to laugh at the absurdity of it all, but underneath that, there’s a very real frustration and pain. I never want to make light of what women go through; I want to make light of the ridiculousness of a society that expects us to just get on with it.
3. Isobel is desperately trying to keep it together. Who is she deep down?
I think Izzie is a little bit of every woman who has had to get on with everyday life whilst dealing with PMS, heavy periods and pain, all whilst pretending everything is absolutely fine. She’s that feeling of having to smile, go to work, see your friends and carry on as normal when your body feels like it’s actively working against you.
For me, she’s also a symbol of how far women can be pushed before they reach breaking point. A lot of that comes from my own experiences of trying to get help from doctors, only to be told, “It’s your period, there’s nothing we can do.” Izzie is what happens when you keep being told to put up with something, keep quiet and carry on. Eventually, something has to give!
4. The show brings PMDD into the spotlight. What made you want to explore this through theatre specifically?
It started with my own struggles with PMS. My symptoms were so severe that I couldn’t sleep, and I eventually developed insomnia around my periods. It was having such a huge impact on my life, and I found it incredibly frustrating trying to understand what was happening to me.
Theatre and comedy are two of my biggest passions, so bringing them together felt like a natural way to explore something that had been such a difficult part of my life. Being able to take something painful, find the absurdity in it and make people laugh has been quite healing for me. But I also wanted to make sure the comedy never took away from the severity of what I was saying.
I hope the show gives women a moment of recognition, where they think, “Oh my God, it’s not just me!” Hormonal changes can have such a huge impact on our lives, and yet so many of us are left feeling like we just have to deal with it on our own. I wanted to create something that opens up that conversation.
5. What do you think audiences will resonate with the most?
I think women will resonate with all those weirdly specific, slightly horrifying things that you don’t necessarily talk about over dinner. The sharp pain up your arse when you’re on your period, the sheer SIZE of some of the clots, the emotional rollercoaster, and the fact that nobody really prepares you for any of it!
I think there’s something really funny about discovering that other women have experienced exactly the same bizarre things as you. You spend so much time thinking your body is doing something completely unhinged, only to discover that someone else has been through exactly the same thing.
I’m also really interested in how the education system lets us down when it comes to preparing us for our periods and our bodies. We get the basic biology lesson, but not necessarily the reality of what it can feel like to live with them. And I hope men leave the show with a little more understanding, too. If nothing else, they’ll never look at a sanitary towel in quite the same way again!
6. What has been the most enjoyable part of creating CLOTS?
Honestly, finding the absurdity and ridiculousness in something that causes women so much pain. Periods can be absolutely miserable, and there’s this unspoken shame around them that means we’re often expected to suffer quietly and just get on with it.
I’ve loved being able to take something that can feel quite horrible and find the comedy in it. There’s something liberating about being able to put the things we’re usually embarrassed about centre stage, make them enormous, make them grotesque and make people laugh at them.
I think women are so often expected to be discreet about their periods, so there’s something really satisfying about doing the complete opposite. If we’re going to have to deal with this every month, we might as well make some bloody theatre out of it!
Clots opens Tuesday 20th October at The Bread & Roses Theatre. Many thanks to Freya Maclean for answering our questions. Book your tickets here!
Max
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