To be honest, Patrick Jones’s play, inspired by the Cym Taf choir in Merthyr Tydfil for those living with dementia, is a mess. But it’s a fine mess. Scenes are short, it hops all over the place and takes wrong turns as it tells the stories of six people affected by dementia, including a former miner and a policeman, on opposite sides of the picket line during the miners’ strike, who are brought together to sing in the local library threatened by closure.
But life often is messy, and this heartfelt and frequently joyous evening has a direct conduit to the heart and a brutal honesty. Just when you think it’s going to descend into sentimentality (and boy, does it come close) or fairytale mode – there’s a trip to the Britain’s Got Talent auditions – it takes a sharp swerve.
There are no happy endings because, even as the voices soar in renditions of Sweet Caroline, Going Underground or the skin-prickling Hurt, so we see the realities of dementia: the failings of social services and the outdated police approach to a loving husband with early-onset Alzheimer’s who has become scared and violent.
For all its flaws – partly kept in check by a terrific cast and community choir – this is an evening that reminds us that just as connections in the brain are crucial, so it is the connections, including local libraries and services, that keep communities together and ensure that we never walk alone.
- At Sherman, Cardiff, until 11 June. Box office: 029-2064 6900.
