Fans are used to seeing Loose Women panellist Andrea McLean on daytime TV, but soon they will be seeing her in a very different environment! On Monday, the mother-of-two revealed that she will be embarking on a debut theatre tour, Confessions of a Menopausal Woman, which is based on her best-selling book, Confessions of a Menopausal Woman. The show will kick off at the Chipping Norton Theatre on Thursday 2 May, and end at the Camberley Theatre on Friday 21 June. The audience can expect to hear Andrea discuss her stories about the menopause, including secrets, top tops and honest confessions. With her popularity on the television, there is no doubt that the show will be a huge success.
Andrea McLean is embarking on her debut theatre tour
Of the news, Andrea said: "I'm so excited to be bringing you hilarious confessions that have been tipsily recounted in ladies loos, heartfelt discussions with couples in the street and heart-breaking messages from women across the country, all revealing what the menopause means to them. There will be laughter, honesty, over-sharing and some brilliant top-tips from my latest book Confessions of a Menopausal Woman.. For women of every age - my Confessions tour is a must-see for mums and daughters everywhere."
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Andrea's tour will focus on the menopause
Andrea has been open about her experience with the menopause, which started for her at the end of 2016. Talking to HELLO!, she explained: "At the end of 2016 I had to have a full hysterectomy and what that did was it put me into full menopause, which is different to a normal menopause in that it's more intense." Andrea added that she started to talk out about because her absence on a daily TV show would have been otherwise unexplained. She said: "I started becoming more vocal about it because of working on a daily TV show - I had to give a reason as to why I wasn't going to be on air. I told the truth, which at the time was actually quite a daring thing to do. If you spoke out about going through the menopause, you were instantly seen as old. Working in the media as I do, being seen as old is really not a great career move. So it was quite a big deal to hold my hand up and say, 'This is what's happening to me, this is what I'm going through'. I was still in my 40s, so I wasn't looking back at it retrospectively. It was something that I was going through at the time."
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The star also said that as soon as she spoke of her hysterectomy and menopause on air, 10,000 women contacted her within 24 hours. "For me, it felt like it came from nowhere but I realised that there's all these women - half the population of the entire world - going through the menopause at some stage. The only time the menopause is ever mentioned is when people are taking the mickey out of it - the whole Les Dawson character leaning on a garden fence and having a hot flush sort of thing."
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