The Moment You Feel It

Richard Briers stars with Rory Kinnear in Ed Harris's delicate, distinctive play about an old man remembering and disremembering. He's having a dialogue with his younger self (hence the double lead casting), revolving round pictures that lodge in the mind and why they linger. The thing is, some of it is being spoken out loud to the nurse who's checking him over. When she tells him there's a smart strange coat in the kitchen he gets very upset. Then all sorts of voices from the past flood in, echoing memories of childhood, of first love.

Alf is an elderly gentleman and he's getting very confused. He can hear voices in his head and one of them is his own from the days when he was married. This play by Ed Harris is billed as a tender comedy and there are moments when Alf's confusion becomes gently amusing. But the overall feeling is one of sadness and loss. Alf is grieving fomr his wife, but also mourning the troubled state of their marriage and the onset of dementia. He describes the attack upon his memory as like that of an imperial army, with different countries falling every day. Richard Briers and Rory Kinnear play Alf the older and younger with understated directness and genuine empathy. A brilliant drama.