Writer: Frances Poet
Director: Jemma Levick
Several years in development at Leeds Playhouse and a two-year postponement due to the pandemic, Frances Poet’s touching family drama finally makes its debut at Leeds Playhouse. Created in collaboration with experts in, carers of and people suffering with dementia it is a story of one family’s coming to terms with a terrible disease told with the greatest of care.
When Michael (Mark Holgate) returns to his parents’ home on his birthday and introduces them to his new, Harry Potter enthusiast girlfriend Claire (Shireen Farkhoy) a slip of the tongue from his mother calling her by the name of his ex becomes the catalyst into receiving alarming news about her recent experiences of cognitive impairment. Dad Gordon (Tony Timberlake) is recovering from a stroke but it is mum Maggie’s (Eithne Browne) Alzheimer’s diagnosis that is now the chief medical worry for this family unit. The couple, now in their sixties and very much in love, must come to terms with what this will mean for all of them over the coming years as Maggie’s brain ‘mist’ will inevitably descend into an all-consuming pea souper.
The creative team have consciously tried to make this production as dementia friendly as possible. For many, no doubt, this play will have very real parallels to their own lives either as a sufferer, carer or family member. Each scene is introduced in a few brief words, captioned above the stage as a reminder. Elements of the story, the sound design, set and costume colour choices have all been influenced by people living with dementia. Inclusivity has become the beating heart of the work at Leeds Playhouse.
Frances Poet’s play is rooted in debunking stereotypical perceptions of dementia. Whilst much of the first half deals with the family’s reaction to the news and Maggie’s fear of the future, we do not follow Maggie’s demise. Rather beautifully, Poet’s focus shifts to the celebration of who she still is, the worth she still has and the good she can still do. There are some genuinely touching moments when Maggie counsels Claire on how to reconnect with her father and a gorgeous final scene about hoarding away magic memories. The play does suffer from being a little too pedestrian at times and, although there is much to explore in terms of subject matter, this is quite often substituted for dramatic tension.
The cast work well together. The love between Timberlake’s Gordon and Browne’s Maggie is evident from the outset. They occasionally fall into song together, finishing one another’s lyrics – a connection they have always had and continue to have through her ‘fog’. It is a shame these moments are not more heightened rather than sung against a backing track. Browne does an excellent job of shifting Maggie from lucidity into the occasional lapse of delirium and from a painfully blunt, comical matter-of-fact attitude to the terror of perhaps maybe one day forgetting her own son’s face.
Although Maggie May is, in essence, a sad story about the cruelty of a wasting disease that affects a surprising number of people in extraordinary ways, it is not a sad play. It is a celebration what you have had in the past, what you have now and what you still have to give. Positive fertile soil in a bleak landscape.
Runs until 21st May 2022
The Reviews Hub Score
Touching family drama
