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Causes and cures

Last week I interviewed an exceptionally lovely theatre director. At the end of our discussion he turned the tables and began to ask me warm, genuinely interested questions about my own life and work.

Very few interviewees do that. It’s as if journalists are a special breed of automata who don’t have mortgages and dogs like everyone else. And anyway they’re usually not interested. In fact it’s quite common to spend two hours in close conversation with someone and then be completely ignored when you see him/her at an event the following week.

So it was rather uplifting to tell this nice man a few things about myself and what I do in real life. And of course I ended up mentioning the presence of Ms Alzheimer’s in my marriage and home – it simmers near the top of my mind almost all the time even when I’m working.

Most people, as I’ve said before, immediately launch into an account of someone close to them who have died horrendously of the illness. Not this charming man who clearly had no experience of Alzheimer’s at all. “Oh dear” he said. “I’ve heard that’s a ghastly disease. What causes it?  Is there a cure?”

What refreshing questions. I hadn’t meant to go into details but of course I found myself trying to explain Alzheimer’s which was useful because – as every teacher knows – the best possible way of straightening something out in your own mind is communicating it to someone else.

It’s easy to say that nobody knows what causes Alzheimer’s. Actually we do. Amyloid proteins in the brain clump together to form Amyloid plaques – look at the large coloured blob on the right of the photograph at the head of this blog. That’s an amyloid plaque. It’s sticky.  And it’s very bad news. What we don’t know is why this clumping business happens in some people and not in others.

I’ve read dozens and dozens of theories in the last 15 months since My Loved One was diagnosed, many of them based on very serious, reputable scientific studies. Is it linked to diet? Or lifestyle? Or smoking? Or alcohol? Or whether or not you do mind puzzles? Is there a correlation with depression? Could it be hereditary? Is it triggered by drugs taken for a different health problem?

None of those fits MLO’s profile.  What about regular migraines which he used to suffer from quite badly in his twenties and thirties? As far as I know that possibility has not been explored but perhaps it should be.

On and on it goes. Scientists are doing their best (although there’s still too little money spent on Alzheimer’s research) but we’re not really much further forward. Even the drugs prescribed to hold back symptoms for a few months have been around for decades.

Then a day or two after my chat with Mr Theatre Director came a study reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Chicago which could – just possibly – be a turning point.

Eight hundred and fifty six patients in US, Europe and Japan, all showing early signs of cognitive decline were given fortnightly injections of  BAN 2401 (no, I don’t know what that is, either). There was a control group in the experiment too who got a placebo. Cautiously described by commentators in the know as “encouraging”, the results show that this drug improves BOTH the physical changes in the brain tissue and the symptoms of the illness. And that’s a first.

Of course, even if the research is corroborated via much larger studies and the drug, or something similar to it, is eventually licensed it will come far too late to help MLO.  But I cling to hope for future generations.

Meanwhile MLO isn’t getting any better, as I say in my understated, double negative, English way to all the kind people who routinely ask.

On Sunday I wrote a birthday card put a stamp on it and said: “Could you pop over the road and post this for me, do you think?” I do this on the grounds that it’s vital to keep him involved and feeling useful although it’s a job I could have done myself in about 3 minutes.

He disappeared upstairs for 10 minutes, having apparently decided that he couldn’t walk the 150 yards to the post box in his sandals and needed to put on a pair of lace-up shoes. Then he asked whether I’d be here to let him when he got back because he struggles with locks. “Yes I’ll be here but please do take the keys from the hook because it’s feeble not even to try” I said. He trudged off.

Fifteen minutes later (he really does walk very slowly now) the door bell rang. I found him outside failing to open the outer porch door with the car key which was on the same ring.

Heavy, heavy weather. That’s life with Ms A as she tightens her grip.

Photograph by Simon Fraser/Science Source

 

 

CHICHESTER FESTIVAL THEATRE

At the heart of this production is some fine exceptionally fine acting especially from Lydia Leonard as Rachel and Jean St Clair as her deaf mother of which more anon. But powerful as it is in places the play itself creaks a bit not least because it tries to do too much at once.

We’re in a Quaker community on the south coast of England in the early Nineteenth Century. Napoleon and his forces are only just across the channel so the atmosphere is tense especially for pacifist Quakers. Childless Rachel, who has born three still-born sons, lives with her husband Adam (Gerald Kyd – strong) and her deaf mother for whom she has to interpret. Then an apprentice (Laurie Davidson – plausible) joins the household and the dynamics both of the family and of the wider community are changed for ever.

The trouble with all this is that it’s least three different stories and they don’t knit together very coherently. I yearned to see and learn more of the relationship between Alice and her mother. The mad moment between Alice and the apprentice (think John Proctor and Abigail in The Crucible) on which the plot of the second half hangs didn’t convince me at all. Then there’s a another ‘happy’ family Elder James Rickman (Jim Findley – good) and his wife, garrulous Biddy (Olivia Darnley – enjoyable) in which all is definitely not what it seems. She has married the ‘wrong’ man who “can be quite unquakerly” at night and she is a real Mrs Bennett to her daughter Tabitha (Leona Allen – excellent). I’d welcome a whole play about the Rickman family. I’d like to have known more about the apprentice’s sketchy back story too. As it is The Meeting leaves too many avenues unexplored and ends untied.

Lydia Leonard finds a deeply naturalistic intensity in Rachel. She is troubled, passionate and frustrated by being a thinker who isn’t always permitted to voice her thoughts. She is also held back by having to be her mother’s voice and half the time she doesn’t understand her own feelings all of which Leonard’s outstanding performance catches adroitly.

Deaf actor Jean St Clair is terrific too. She watches intensely and conveys as much with her eyes as many actors fail to do with their whole bodies. She also acts beautifully through signing and when she finally speaks orally at the end of the play it’s pretty moving.

I also loved the set (by Vicki Mortimer) and the sound effects (by Ben and Max Ringham) On one side of the Minerva’s in-the-round stage are tiers of rocks to connote the coast and the stone masonry which is Adam’s trade. Most of the action take place centre stage which represents indoors. Sometimes the space becomes the Quaker Meeting House when an ingenious ring descends and characters lift down chairs which hook into it and sit below it in the traditional Quaker circle of silence. As the ring goes up and down there is an atmospheric scraping noise which heightens the tension. At other moments you can hear Sussex sea birds.

Yes, this is a production with some good moments, ideas and performances but it also struggles to know exactly what it’s trying to do and where it’s going.

Review first published by Sardines: http://www.sardinesmagazine.co.uk/reviews/review.php?REVIEW-Chichester%20Festival%20Theatre%20(professional)-The%20Meeting&reviewsID=3268

Mr Stink continues at the Chickenshed Theatre, London until 4 August 2018.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

This show is the sort of cheery, uplifting stuff which sends you home with a spring in your step and a smile on your face. It’s inclusive. It’s diverse. And it’s fun.

David Walliams’ whimsical story about a rather unhappy little girl who befriends a tramp, thereby transformatively rehabiliating them both, is a good fit for Chickenshed with its “theatre changing lives” mission. And it was, apparently, Walliams himself who suggested that they do it following the success of last year’s The Midnight Gang.

Lou Stein’s version embellishes the basic story by adding …

Read the rest of this review at Musical Theatre Review: http://musicaltheatrereview.com/mr-stink-chickenshed-theatre/

When you’re old enough to remember seeing Sir Adrian Boult and Otto Klemperer live it’s really quite exciting to see a conductor as young as Ben Gernon, 28, doing a fine job and reassuring us all that classical music is in safe hands for decades to come.

A crisp and intelligent performance of that glorious old warhorse, Beethoven’s Emperor concerto was the high spot of this concert – noteworthy for sensitive dynamics and a certain freshness, especially in the adagio.  Paul Lewis played it with warm maturity and precision.  And I always judge any performance of the E flat concerto by the handling of that beautiful link passage between the adagio and the rondo – maybe one of the most exquisitely lyrical few bars Beethoven ever wrote. Here the lingering rubato was nicely balanced before it danced triumphantly away.

The evening had begun with the world premiere of Tansy Davies’s What Did We See? – an orchestral suite from Between Worlds. A four movement suite extrapolated by the composer from her 9/11 opera, it is moving (once you’ve read the programme notes and understood what it’s about) and musically interesting. It uses, for example, a battery of unusual percussion and requires six percussionists to play gong, horizontal bass drum, cymbals sounded by passing a rod vertically through the centre hole, xylophone, glockenspiel, various rattles and shakers and a strange bowed bell – among many other things. There are evocative, chittering percussive sounds in the strings too – produced by specialist bowing and tapping as well as atmospheric glissandi. All this is, I suspect, pretty difficult to play but the BBC Philharmonic rose ably enough to the challenge.

After the interval came an uplifting performance of Brahms Second Symphony conducted without baton – as also for the Davies and the Beethoven. For the Brahms he didn’t use a score either. As always that creates a strong line of very direct communication between conductor and players. They gave us an articulately melodious first movement, a gently sombre contrasting adagio and an allegretto at cracking pace with emphasis on the busy strings, every note clear. Then came a resounding allegro with lots of energy, bounce and passion. The roar of applause at the end was well earned.

First published by Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3

As soon as the 2018 Proms Youth Choir sang the first vibrant note of Eriks Esenvalds’s unaccompanied setting of Longfellow’s sonnet “A Shadow”, you knew that this was going to be quite an evening. Two hundred and fifty singers seated in one stage-right huge bank created a very warm strong sound which burst joyfully through the grandiloquent Royal Albert Hall acoustic. And if some of the exposed top soprano notes felt a bit strained, well I can live with that. It will be a long time before I forget this piece – a first performance – which ends with the choir whistling and the sound slowly dying away to the tinkling of bells and small glockenspiels in the hands of some of the choir members. The choir consists of University of Birmingham Voices, University of Aberdeen Chamber Choir, North East Choir and BBC Proms Youth Choir Academy. Each group had trained separately and then come together for a four day intensive rehearsal residency led by Chorus Director, Simon Halsey who conducted this fine performance.

Next, in a concert entitled War and Peace, came Britten’s Sinfonia da Requiem played by Georg Solti’s World Orchestra for Peace which draws players from orchestras based in several continents. They’d sat quietly waiting in position during the opener. And if I may be allowed a “girly” observation it’s good to see a band in which the women dress in different colours. Visually very jolly. Coloured shirts for the chaps next, please.

Donald Runnicles splits his first and second violins across the stage which, as always, makes the lower strings sound more integrated – especially in the pizzicato section in the third movement’s lush (hopeful?) conclusion. The second movement was memorable too. With its col legno tattoo rhythm, snare drum and trumpet tune it really was Dies Irae and – in a piece which ensures that all four percussionists work hard for their fee – the decelerandoending with all those offset notes from different sections is not for the faint hearted. This lot brought it off with all the passion and panache it needs.

But the jewel in the crown was the magnificent account of Beethoven’s Choral Symphony which formed the second half – the choir now re-grouped evenly behind the orchestra. I have actually sung this piece in the Royal Albert Hall and so understand well the problems of the conductor being a very long way away – not an issue at this performance, partly because the impeccably trained choir sang without copies so that their responses were impeccably precise.

Runnicles gave us lots of sensitivity and colour in the first three movement with effectively exaggerated piano passages in the first and close attention to the detail with some very crisp string runs in the second – as well as making the very best of one of my favourite moments when the timpani take over from the bassoon lead and we’re into anticipation and excitement.  The lilting lyricism of the third movement was tenderly clear too with emphasis on delicate pairings of instruments which sometimes get lost in the texture.

Introducing the Ode to Joy theme at a brisk tempo and very softly left Runnicles with plenty of colourful, dramatics places to go and he certainly did – inspired perhaps by the fabulous quality of the choral singing (four good soloists too but somehow – seated between the orchestra and choir they seemed almost secondary in this performance). Verbal precision and very accurate pitching drove the piece along to its triumphant conclusion – any nervousness now forgotten as the sopranos sailed through those sublime, long high notes. Bravo to all concerned.

First published in Lark Reviews: http://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3

Antony McDonald, director of this production, puts a modern, mildly feminist spin on Richard Strauss’s opera-within-an-opera and it responds rather well. The thirty five minute prologue, which forms the first half, gives us a female composer (Julia Sporsen) in jeans falling in love with Zebinetta (Jennifer France) when the latter arrives with her Burlesque troupe and threatens the opera. Veteran actor, Eleanor Bron, meanwhile, makes a cameo appearance as the party planner.

The point, of course, is an examination of high art and its relationship with “popular” art. The incongruous Gilbertian compromise that the opera company and the burlesque troop will stage a show about Ariadne collaboratively is – in this production – suitably entertaining and witty. It also heightens the poignancy of the bereft Ariadne (Mardi Byers) whose lover, Theseus has abandoned her. I shall long treasure the silly dance with tricks by Zerbinetta and her troupe of four – to Strauss at his most tunefully spikey – as they try, and fail, to cheer up Ariadne.

Jennifer France is in her element as Zerbinetta and her show piece number – with Queen of the Night-like top notes and vocal acrobatics along with delicious comic timing, nippy dancing and lots of panache – gets her a well-deserved round of spontaneous applause. Mardi Byers delights as a velvety voiced, soulful and then joyful Ariadne and there’s lovely work from Kor-Jan Dusseljee as Bacchus who eventually sweeps her off her feet – their concluding duets are warmly balanced and theatrically satisfying.

It’s one of Strauss’s richest, and best orchestrated operatic scores and conductor Brad Cohen brings out the colour – even though from my seat I could hear more stage left percussion than I could horns who were on the other side.

Antony McDonald’s set is an ingenious device. It consists of three scruffy caravans – all with doors for exits and entrances and one which can be (and is) climbed on. These are the backstage areas for the visiting performers and they sit well against the elegant residual brick and stone work of the Holland Park house to suggest that a couple of troupes of performers have arrived at a stately home. In the second half, for the opera, the caravans are moved to the sides to make room for the dining table which forms the main set item for Ariadne but we never forget that this is a show within a show.

I’m less convinced by the rather clumsy device of doing the prologue in English and the opera in German. I suppose it stresses the idea that first these people are being themselves and then they’re acting but it felt very false and certainly confused several audience members who were seated near me.

First published by Lark Reviewshttp://www.larkreviews.co.uk/?cat=3

Last week I  revisited two examples of theatre changing the lives of young people. Everyone in this industry – and those who directly or indirectly manages funding for such organisations – really should get into these places to marvel at what theatre can achieve.

First I went to Chickenshed to see their latest production – the very enjoyable Mr Stink. “Inclusivity” is an easy word but it’s rarely practised quite as fully as it is at Chickenshed which runs classes and activities for children and young people of ALL (and they mean all) abilities. Some members have Downs Syndrome, some cerebral palsy, some have illnesses, some have personality or behavioural issues and many have none of these things. They are just young people wanting to do drama. It’s fabulously, admirably and exemplarily diverse.

There’s a cradle-to-grave aspect to Chickenshed too. Several of the adults in the Mr Stink cast have been members since childhood. Having worked through Chickenshed’s BTEC and degree programmes they are now on the staff helping to deliver what Chickenshed calls “Theatre Changing Lives”. Some of the children the organisation works with would probably have difficulty fitting in elsewhere but here they are having a whale of a time, growing as people, learning a huge amount and taking part in high quality quasi professional theatre. As always after visiting, I was on a high all the way home.

A couple of days later found me at Intermission Theatre, based at St Saviour’s Church in Knightsbridge to interview artistic director Darren Raymond for a magazine article. Intermission works with 25 young people a year, drawn from all over London. Darren doesn’t want them “categorised” and he’s right. Let’s just say they lack opportunities in their own neighbourhoods and may be at risk of getting into trouble with the law.

As Intermission members they take part in drama workshops and stage plays based on Shakespeare which Darren adapts and directs. The most recent was Ring of Envy which is a version of Othello using a rather wonderful blend of street language and Shakespeare. I saw and enjoyed it the same night as Mark Rylance who is an enthusiastic patron. The organisation is now in its 10th year and Darren has lots of success stories of young people who’ve gone on to make a success of their lives after finding a sense of purpose and worth at Intermission.

The biggest success story is arguably Darren himself who discovered Shakespeare while serving a long sentence (he actually did three years) in Brixton Prison for possession of Class A drugs with intent to deal and money laundering. He was 19 at the beginning of his sentence. Thanks to London Shakespeare Workshop  – yet another example of how theatre can change lives –  he ended up playing Othello in a prison production as well as on tour after his release. Then he was invited to start Intermission Theatre and the rest is history. Today he’s a practising Christian, husband and father of three daughters.

QED. Drama is transformational. Would Arts Council England, the DfE and any Big Businesses with a sponsorship budget like me to act as a consultant?

 

The Alzheimer’s Society logo is based on a forget-me-not and how very apt that is. It’s all too easy to shut Alzheimer’s people away and forget them – so much easier than dragging them out to places and I’m as guilty of that as anyone. And, although I often observe that this ghastly illness is much more than memory loss, forgetfulness is certainly a major symptom.

I see this increasingly in My Loved One’s reading habits. I’m relieved he still reads a lot because neither of us has ever been a habitual TV viewer and of course he needs a default activity. Mostly he reads on his Kindle. We share downloads. “What are you reading?” I ask brightly. He simply can’t tell me. He doesn’t seem to be able to remember a word of it. Not only can he not tell me the title or author but he can’t even explain what it’s about. Whether he’s able to pick up the thread of a book when he returns to it I have no idea – and frankly don’t want to know because if he really can’t follow a plot and is just “reading” mechanically out of habit than that’s almost too sad to bear. To think this is a man with whom I used to discuss books. What a long time ago that begins to seem.

Then there are dates and commitments. He has no idea what day of the week it is and will say, for example. “This must be school traffic” if I’m driving him to the garden centre on a Saturday afternoon. I keep a big calendar on the kitchen notice board and cross off the days off but he still likes to write things (hand writing now quite shaky) in his diary. Quite often he notes things down on the wrong date and then gets anxious about them, I tell him over and over again that he’s made a mistake and usually end up correcting it in his diary myself. Every morning I tell him what day of the week it is and what’s going on today but it doesn’t stick for long – information is now for MLO what one of the educationists I studied at college called “plasters on the mind”.

Sometimes, I suppose forgetfulness is a mercy. What you can’t remember can’t upset you. I even hanker for a bit of it myself. Instead I’m blessed (cursed?) with a razor sharp memory. If you want to know the name of the dog who lived next door to my grandparents in 1960, I’m your woman. Ask me what I was reading on 9/11 or what grades most of my students got and I’ll tell you. Journalistically it’s useful.  I write most reviews and interviews without looking much at the copious notes I’ve made. But when it comes to reflecting on MLO and life with Ms A it’s distressing territory because the decline is so clear.

Two years ago we were preparing to move from our big house in Sittingbourne to a much smaller one in Catford – which we eventually did at the end of September. In July MLO was routinely driving up and down the M2 to see estate agents, sort out temporary accommodation for the cat and lots more. He also went more than once to Ramsgate to deliver paperwork to our solicitor. At home he competently joined me in packing/wrapping sessions – by the time we actually left we had filled many boxes with our most precious things ourselves because I didn’t fancy the removal men doing it. Saucepans are one thing. My collection of Wedgwood is another. He was perfectly able to talk to estate agents, solicitors and the like on the phone too.

And if I went to London for work he would routinely lock the house and come up on the train to meet me for an evening show – we’d agree a convenient meeting place. We did that hundreds of times over the years and it never failed until one occasion the week we moved when he couldn’t find me.  At the time (probably wrongly with hindsight) I put that down mostly to stress.

Well, thank goodness we moved when we did because he wouldn’t be able to do a single one of those things now. If I take him into town as I did last weekend for a show at The Old Vic and then a Prom (both review jobs for me) I have to lead him by the hand so I know where he is. I also help him on and off trains and down steps.

Much of the time he seems very vague about where we are and where we’re going. “We’ll go to Waterloo East because that’s handy for The Old Vic” I said several times, seeing off repeated enquiries about London Bridge and Charing Cross. On the tube – especially if he’s across the carriage – I keep mouthing the name of the destination station or counting them off on my fingers for him as you would for a child. These days it’s very tempting to suggest that he stays at home – which he’s more than happy to do because he finds going out a huge effort. I’m ashamed of the thought but life is, of course, much easier when I’m out and about on my own.

When we came out of the Albert Hall at the end of the evening on Saturday he said he was very tired (too tired to walk the ten minutes to South Kensington tube station?) and I had to get a taxi to take us back to Charing Cross. Where has my lively, energetic, healthy husband gone? Forget him not.