In September 2017 Associate Artist Danusia Iwaszko returned to the Befrienders Group at the Hub to continue the performance workshops that Theatre Royal started at the beginning of the year. 18 people have signed up for the group and carers want to join too, so the group will be about 27, larger than in March.In September 2017 Associate Artist Danusia Iwaszko returned to the Befrienders Group at the Hub to continue the performance workshops that Theatre Royal started at the beginning of the year. 18 people have signed up for the group and carers want to join too, so the group will be about 27, larger than in March.

We are going to devise our own play and the suggestion from the group is that it explores Dementia. This idea was inspired by doing ‘The Rags of Time’, as one performer said: “The Rags of Time is what’s left when someone has dementia”.
We are now going to research the subject. The group have suggested that we portray, on stage, the minds of people with dementia. One of the carers is a puppeteer and has three puppets which we are going to use in the show. We are going to portray the minds with dance, words, puppets and music. Darnell, the composer from ‘The Rags of Time’, is going to compose original music.

One of the participants said: “A person with dementia is like an orange. You peel away the layers, then the pieces are eaten and all that’s left is a little pip.”

Danusia said: “This is a very exciting project. We are working on our performance skills and will devise the play ourselves. The participants will come up with the characters they want to play. It was lovely to come back to the group and have such a warm welcome. We hope to stage the play in June 2018, funds permitting and this time, instead of it being family and friends, the group want to open the performance up to the public. I think that’s a mark of their growing confidence!”