
Event Description
Presented by Arts Uplift for everyone aged 8 and above, Navigating Margaret is a magical journey about living with dementia. Set in Malvern, it is inspired by true-life stories, gathered from across the county through the ground-breaking Suitcase Stories project.
Once a quick-witted female pilot, Margaret is becoming increasingly forgetful and erratic, so her son Graham encourages her to get a diagnosis. A familiar story, perhaps, but Margaret’s ensuing journey through stages of dementia is anything but pedestrian. As her condition progresses, she interacts with overlapping layers of the past and the present. The action flows back and forth between her family struggling to cope with her gradual changes and the tangled memories of her earlier life, including her 1950s childhood in her family’s hairdressers, working at the carpet factory, courting Charlie at tea dances, and becoming one of Worcestershire’s first airwomen. With the assistance of a well-informed talking magpie, she begins to navigate through her condition.
Written and directed by international director Helen Tennison, the play is a tale of sadness, love and hope, as well as a celebration of Worcestershire’s rich history, told through the eyes of an extraordinary, everyday woman. Fusing naturalistic dialogue with abstract physical theatre, Navigating Margaret elegantly sketches complex elements of the neuroscience of dementia; and decodes some of its mystifying behaviours.
The cast is a blend of professional and community actors from the local area and features a recorded choir of people living with dementia.
There will be a Q&A session after each show to discuss the play and on the panel will be Age UK Hereford and Worcestershire, the leading dementia support services in the county.
Show times
Friday 24 March 2023, 7pm
Saturday 25 March 2023, 2pm
Saturday 25 March 2023, 7pm
Tickets
£16.17 (adult) / £8.62 (child) / £5.39 (low income, unemployed, disabled)