Theatre review: Couldn’t Care Less, Edinburgh

****

Whatever the quality of the work, there’s always a sense that its primary purpose is to address the subject in hand, and to give a voice to people whose problems are often ignored; and there’s no doubt that Liz Strange’s new 60-minute show – with text by Morna Pearson, and direction by Tim Licata – makes a superb job of exploring the experience of elderly people with dementia, and, most strikingly, of those who find themselves caring for them.

So as the story begins – on a domestic set full of suitcases stuffed with memories – we see elderly Elspeth transformed within months from a brisk, perfectly-organised retired dance teacher to a confused, withdrawn figure who often hardly recognises her own child; while her daughter Lilly undergoes her own frightening journey from being a successful PR woman in London to the drudgery of an unpaid carer on attendance allowance.

If the real-life problems around this situation are perfectly observed, though, it’s also good to report that despite some cliched acting in the early scenes, the show soon achieves a creative beauty and fluency in its handling of the theme, using dream sequences, gorgeous ballroom dance music and a subtly magical set to evoke the “new dance” of caring and mothering that Elspeth and Lilly must learn. So much so, that at the end, some members of the audience seemed unable to leave; perhaps moved beyond words by the intense sympathy with which this show explores the experience of accompanying a much-loved parent on the hardest journey of all.