IS YOUR man more James May than Christian Grey, asks the new edition of Hormonal Housewives.

Playing in York for one night only on Thursday, Julie Coombe’s show combines fresh sketches with the best bits from last year’s tour as she covers everything that makes today’s woman tick or feel ticked off.

Joining Edinburgh writer, performer and mother Julie on the Grand Opera House stage will be Toyah Willcox, the effervescent stage and screen actress and pop singer, and Sarah Jane Buckley, another actress and singer with an Eva Cassidy tribute show in her repertoire and a writing string to her bow too.

For Toyah, appearing in a three-hander is a new concept. “It’s pure comedy with the three of us playing ourselves and various characters, so we’re the glue that holds together this celebration of women,” says the 54-year-old performer from King’s Heath.

“I don’t think the show is patronising, but nor is it feminist or political at all. I think shows like this exist because feminism has paved the way for them. It’s your everywoman show, looking at aspects of being a woman, such as the competition at the school gates; dress sizes; book groups; going to the gym; and staying thin.”

Married to musician Robert Fripp, Toyah is neither a desperate nor a hormonal housewife. “I don’t feel particularly desperate as a housewife as I’m on tour all the time,” she says. “As for hormonal, I’m beyond that as I’m well in to my menopause now, but I sympathise with them.”

In the absence of being a housewife with children, Toyah comes to Hormonal Housewives as “an actress who wants to experience a new kind of genre of performance and give everything to it”. “Though I’ve opted out of motherhood and domesticity and am very much a man in a woman’s body as I’ve always felt like that, I’ve learnt to appreciate those things, though I don’t feel I’ve missed out,” she says.

Assessing the appeal of Coombe’s show, Toyah says: “The primary thing about it is communicating that absolutely everything about a woman is unique. It’s very funny in poking fun at the situation without being cruel in any way.

“By Julie pointing things out, it allows a woman to identity with her own fears. I never thought a sketch about the size of a coat could bring the house down, but it does.”

Where do men fit into the show, Toyah? “I say men are very welcome to come because we idolise them rather than knock them – and we talk about sex and desire in older age too,” she says, broadening her answer.

“I say Julie’s show is Chaucer for modern women, Al Murray with a sex change. It really is very naughty.”

It should strike home with anyone, she reckons. “The minimum age to see it would be 15/16 and the maximum is… alive!”

Played out on a new set design of three wonky houses that “represent us when we have PMT”, Hormonal Housewives has been rewritten by Julie to integrate stories from each cast member. “It’s really good fun. We’re all radically different, very physically different and philosophically different and different characteristics of each of us are brought out,” she says.

“I’d say all three of us are strong individually. You have to do this show from a strong individual place because you don’t present weaknesses. This show is not about victims; it’s a celebration of women and that’s why it’s not condescending.”

After her Eighties’ chart success and more experimental music-making and her acting roles in the likes of Jubilee, Quadrophenia, The Taming Of The Shrew, Peter Pan, Amadeus, Calamity Jane and Arthur Smith’s Live Bed Show, Toyah is rising to the new challenge of Hormonal Houewives.

“I’m learning a lot about comedy and comic timing and so, for me, this is one of the most rewarding pieces of comedy I’ve done,” she says. “I’ve enjoyed that technical side of it, where we’ve been working with Julie as she writes and edits the show to get it exactly as she would want it.”

Toyah will be on the road with Julie and Sarah Jane until May 26, and then what comes next? “I’m not saying, because right now this has to be all about Hormonal Housewives,” she says.

Hormonal Housewives with Toyah Willcox, Julie Coombe and Sarah Jane Buckley, Grand Opera House, York, Thursday, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york