“You always do it, don’t you?” said an impressed audience member to Pip Utton as he thanked us for attending his latest one-man show And Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You about the affects of dementia on both the individual and their family.
Indeed he does. “It” being the writing and performance of an excellent production which succeeds in being laugh-out-loud funny, dab-your-eyes moving and above all deeply human. Hence why in 2015 he was awarded the Stage Special Award for Acting Excellence for his portrayal of the Iron Lady in Playing Maggie.
With the house lights up and Utton in role as Michael, the loving husband to the late and equally loving Chrissie whose funeral service we find ourselves attending, the tone is deliberately low key and informal as, reading from a pre-prepared speech, which is quickly dispensed with (“too cold”), we are hooked and lured in from the off.
Chrissie, his childhood sweetheart of over forty years, proud mother and doting grandparent, first female principal of the local grammar school in which they both worked, a “born leader”, and for the bumbling Michael “born organiser”, was reduced to the shamble of “a shell”. And like Polly the Parrot in the famous Monty Python sketch is no more.
“There’s no way of knowing how fast or slow this disease will progress,” says Michael as he recounts her demise – and then his own from the same disease – through a series of short scenes which grow increasingly barbed yet poignant. Not to mention funny, with the final and (sadly for some) unfulfilled item on Chrissie’s bucket list being: “And if we have any time left, kill Tony Blair.”
For anyone who has lost or is losing someone to dementia (which, let’s face it, is most of us) there is much to relate to: the first signs brushed off with a joke; the increasing signs acknowledged with fear; notes on gas cookers; notes to self “be patient”; a dinner of three burnt sausages and a banana washed down with a gravy of kettle de-scaler; and the worst day of your life – not your loved one not recognising you, but you not recognising your loved one.
Three chilling scenes underscored by the same pre-recorded “quiz” (“to get the treatment right”) mark Michael’s demise. His initial reaction to the medical assessment being one of bewilderment and frustration. His second: drowning, not waving. His last, a Q&A reduced to Q after Q after Q without any attempt at an A. Just like his wife: a shamble of a shell.
It is deeply moving stuff. Yet by the end, utterly life-affirming as in the role of their chipper Australian son John, Utton gently implores us to make the most of each passing day, tell our loved ones that we love them (before we forget them or they forget us) and as Chrissie wrote in her Do Not Forget list: “If you are nice to people, generally people will be nice to you.”
- REVIEW: Orphans @ Edinburgh King’s Theatre ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - 13th April 2022
- REVIEW: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie @ Edinburgh Festival Theatre ⭐⭐⭐⭐ - 30th March 2022
- REVIEW: Sheila’s Island @ Edinburgh King’s Theatre - 2nd March 2022