The team at West Yorkshire Playhouse have been pioneers in creating dementia-friendly performances to allow people living with Alzheimer’s Disease to be fully welcomed into their audiences.
Still Alice made its British stage premier this week to kick-start the theatre’s six-week Every Third Minute festival – so named because every third minute someone in the UK will be diagnosed with dementia.
The emotional rollercoaster begins with highly-successful Alice (Sharon Small) forgetting simple things around her home as tries to balances her career with the needs of her drippy husband John (Domnic Mafham) and their two grown-up children.
At 50 she wonders if the menopause might be to blame before the chilling reality of her condition at such a young age takes hold.
Small’s performance is spellbinding and we hold our breath in horrified anticipation as her inner-voice (Ruth Gemmell) – a constant accompaniment on stage – reveals the thoughts her own once eloquent lips will no longer reveal.
The stage set begins as a cluttered family home with furniture slowly being removed throughout in a reflection of Alice’s failing mind.
There are real moments of distress such as when Alice loses her bearings in her own home and cannot find the bathroom or when she fails to recognise her actress daughter after a show.
It is a shame that too often the play opts for caution rather than dynamism as it brings the plethora of side-issues the family must encounter to the fore only to gently scratch the surface before swiftly moving onto the next heartstring-tugging scene.
This helps director David Grindley keep a swift pace and while this enables the production to avoid becoming overtly morbid it sadly renders the characters around Alice slightly more one-dimensional than the actors deserve.
Still Alice runs at West Yorkshire Playhouse until March 3. Tickets priced from £13.50
Box office 0113 213 7700. Book online wyp.org.uk