Women’s health takes centre stage at Southampton Fringe Festival

The Southampton Fringe Festival is one of the most exciting events in the city’s calendar for 2024 and LifeLab was delighted to be a (small!) part of it. 

SO: FRINGE showcases the rich culture that Southampton has with a programme of performances spanning comedy, dance, live music, poetry and theatre.

For the past four years, we’ve been working with TheatreforLife to combine arts, theatre and science to shine a light on health and wellbeing issues, particularly for young people. 

This latest project, The feeling of knowing something is wrong, but it isn't, has emerged from a ‘Public Engagement with Research’ project ‘From Puberty to Menopause’ and was performed by the TheatreforLife company as part of the festival. 

The piece explored female hormonal health and gender identity. These stories, often shrouded in silence and shame across cultures and generations, are brought to light through live theatre and music. 

LifeLab focus groups

‘From Puberty to Menopause’ was a cross-faculty project, involving Kath Woods-Townsend (LifeLab, Faculty of Medicine), Lucy Green (Faculty of Medicine) and Tamar Pincus (Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences). It was funded by the Public Engagement with Research Unit at the University of Southampton.

Focus groups were held with diverse groups of women at different stages of their hormonal lifecourse, (puberty, motherhood, infertility, and menopause) to discuss their experiences and how it’s shaped their life and identity. 

These powerful and emotional stories have shaped the production of The feeling of knowing something is wrong, but it isn't.

Kath Woods Townsend, LifeLab Programme Manager, said: “Bringing the arts and theatre together to explore our feelings about our bodies and health, is a very powerful way of explaining complex and sensitive issues to a wide audience, especially a young audience. It can help people understand and can encourage positive change. 

“This production is a creative and heartfelt way to safely facilitate conversations about everyone's unique journey from puberty to menopause. We are incredibly proud to be a part of it and grateful to everyone who took part in our focus groups. One of the eye-opening parts of this project was how generous people were in sharing their experiences and how open they were. It also showed how similar our experiences are, and how powerful our hormones are.”

Continuing the collaboration 

The production is the latest in a series of projects between LifeLab and TheatreforLife. 

Working with TheatreforLife and environmentalists, scientists and academics from across the University, we held workshops for local teenagers to explore the impact of climate change in our communities.