Tiger Country by Nina Raine, Hampstead Theatre, 12 December 2014

Talk about bad timing.

Less than a week earlier we’d seen a play about dementia (albeit a truly excellent one), while mum’s dementia was fast deteriorating:

Visitors by Barney Norris, Bush Theatre, 6 December 2014

…little did we know that we were seeing this play about NHS hospital chaos less than a fortnight before mum was to make her final, one-way trip to such a place.

In truth, although we quite enjoyed this play/production, we found it a bit fast and furious without really saying all that much. We’d felt similarly about the police one, Wildefire, at the same venue a few weeks before:

Wildefire by Roy Williams, Hampstead Theatre, 7 November 2014

As with Wildefire, there was some great acting, some wonderful lines and some super vignettes in there. Indira Varma was excellent, as usual; in fact the whole cast was good.

Perhaps it was just a bit too near the bone for me – not just in the mum aspect but also because I was doing so much work with NHS Foundation Trusts at that time. Definitely worth seeing, but no wow factor for either of us.

Below is a “behind the scenes” video:

Below is the actual trailer for the production:

Here is a link to the reviews – the critics pretty-much universally loved the piece.