Bothered & Bewildered

This play is written by Gail Young and directed by Wendy Beaumont, who has a great cast for this enjoyable and thought provoking play.  As always NFP have a great set.

The play revolves around Irene (Jane Sykes) who is starting to suffer with dementia, and her two daughters Beth (Fiona Fowler) and Louise (Anne-Marie Stone), who are struggling with how to cope.

Irene has a great imaginary fiend in Barbara Cartland, nicely played by Joy Bacon. There are some touching and funny moments between them. You find out that Irene had a son by her first boyfriend who was killed in the war and she was made to give up the baby, as it wasn’t the done thing to bring up a child alone in her day. 
Leuan Luker plays her sweetheart Jim, and the Jasmine Glyde plays the young Irene and also doubles as her granddaughter. They work well together. She looks after her grandmother one evening and she, it turns out, is herself now expecting but this has been accepted by her mum so the play also shows how people’s attitudes have changed.

There is some great character work in this play, and lots of nice cameo parts.There are lots of funny and also sad moments within the play. Once Irene goes into a home, the daughters find the letter from the son who called once at her home trying to trace his mother. It made me think, would they now try and contact him?

Well done to all evolved in the production.
 

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