Groundbreaking cabaret Queenagers – which comes to Peterborough’s Key Theatre later this month – has evoked a powerful reaction from male audience members during its early tour dates.

Queenagers, from renowned London and Cornwall-based production company Scary Little Girls, blends comedy, real-life testimony and factual information-sharing about perimenopause, menopause and midlife change.

Since the tour began earlier this summer, cast members have found themselves in conversation after conversation with male audience members at the stage door with many processing for the first time what their partners have been going through.

One man, reflecting after a performance, told the cast he now believes his marriage might not have ended had he understood earlier what his wife was experiencing during her menopause.

He is not an isolated case - cast members report a recurring pattern of men approaching them post-show visibly moved, asking questions, and saying the show had done more to help them understand a partner's midlife changes than anything else they'd encountered.

Women in the audience are responding just as strongly, but differently - describing a sense of finally being seen and represented in a way they say mainstream culture rarely offers them.

Rebecca Mordan, artistic director of Scary Little Girls, said: “You don’t do 24 years of feminist programming without the support of your audiences, we are fortunate to have a warm relationship with our crowds, but we’ve never had reactions like this! Women telling us they feel seen and sane for the first time in years and men desperate to be part of the conversations and have their questions answered.”

Queenagers is hosted by peri-menopausal glamourpuss Bunny Morethan — the alter ego of Scary Little Girls' artistic director Rebecca Mordan, a Glastonbury Festival compère, Sky News panellist and BBC Writers Room alumna. Based on Jennifer Kennedy's award-winning blog Is It Just Me and her sell-out Edinburgh show Menopausal Mayhem, the show weaves personal monologues, comedy and music into an evening that gives voice to real experiences of menopause.

Tickets for the show on September 23 are available from www.keytheatre-peterborough.com