Channel 4 has announced the commission of The Change, a brand new six-part comedy-drama series created, written by, and starring multi-award-winning stand-up comedian, actor and writer, Bridget Christie.
Linda - played by Christie (Edinburgh Comedy Award, Rose D’Or and South Bank Sky Arts Award winner) - a 50-year-old working class married mother of two, is having an existential crisis. Who is she? What is she? Is this it? Convinced she’s got early onset dementia after forgetting what a shoe is called, Linda’s GP informs her it is, in fact, the menopause. Feeling invigorated and empowered by this information, Linda decides to claw back some of the time she’s spent doing ‘invisible work’ over the years (not all 3.5 million minutes, just 131,500 of them) to do something for herself… for a change.
Dusting off her old Triumph motorbike that she hasn’t ridden in 30 years, Linda sets off alone to the spectacular wilderness of The Forest of Dean - in search of an identity, a purpose, and tree she climbed as a child. Along the way she meets an array of eccentric locals, including the infamous Eel Sisters, an angry local radio presenter and a mysterious man who lives in the woods with the wild boar. What could possibly go wrong?
Creator Bridget Christie commented: “I’ve got a Channel 4 series??? Are you joking? I’m sorry I don’t know anything about this. Unless I’ve forgotten? I am having terrible trouble remembering things at the moment because of the menopause. What’s it about?”
Fiona McDermott, Head of Comedy at Channel 4, said: “Bridget pitched the show with the tag line ‘Shirley Valentine meets Deliverance. With Pigs’. She had us at pigs. We’re so thrilled to be working with her and Expectation and be able to hero 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.”
Morwenna Gordon, Executive Producer for Expectation added: “We couldn't be more excited to work with Bridget on channelling her brilliant comic voice into a narrative comedy. She's putting the menopause at the heart of the story, against the beautiful, magical and at times unsettling backdrop of The Forest of Dean, and we’ve no doubt The Change will be a real treat for Channel 4 viewers.”
The Change was commissioned for Channel 4 by Fiona McDermott, Head of Comedy and Laura Riseam, Commissioning Executive for Comedy. The series is written by Bridget Christie, Executive Producers are Bridget Christie, Nerys Evans and Morwenna Gordon. The series will be produced by Lisa Mitchell and is an Expectation production.
