Feminine Forever - Radio 4 Comedy Drama - British Comedy Guide (original) (raw)
Genre
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Episodes
Stars
Lesley Manville, Ron Cook, Alex Tregear and Stephen Hogan
Writers
Caroline Stafford and David Stafford
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Set in the 1970s against a background of increasingly politicised feminism, Feminine Forever is a comedy about women, HRT and the joys of growing old disgracefully.
The series is loosely based on some of the ideas and attitudes contained in a book, published in 1966 and powerfully influential at the time. The book, Feminine Forever by Robert A. Wilson MD, advanced the notion that the menopause is a disease - much like diabetes - for which modern science luckily has the cure: Hormone Replacement Therapy.
Recent discoveries in the field of menopausal therapy, says Dr Robert, may serve to prolong for many women - and for the men who love and admire them - that wonderfully happy aura of love and adoration that full femininity inspires. Only 15% of women are able to grow old gracefully. The rest are suffering from a serious, painful and often crippling disease - the menopause.
Although this series is a gentle comedy - much in the manner of 2010's highly successful The Year They Invented Sex by the same authors - it explores and explodes the prevailing attitudes that underlay these views of women, their sexuality, and the roles ascribed to them (particularly in relation to age) - views that may not be quite as 'historical' as we might like to imagine.
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First broadcast
Monday 24th September 2012 at 10:45am on BBC Radio 4