25 February

Fluff seems anxious to tell us her story, but it quickly becomes clear that not all that she tells us can be taken at face value. She is wearing a party hat, but is insistent that it is not her birthday, and she does not recognise visitors to her room. One of those visitors gives her a book of Word Search puzzles, which she furiously tears to bits. Searching for words, for meanings, is clearly a fraught business for Fluff, her narration is confused and fragmented, though some key details emerge. Taking us back to her childhood she depicts an Irish mother, given to showing-off and unstinting in her criticism of her fuzzy-haired daughter. We learn too of an adored father who shows her Orion’s Belt in the night sky and tells her: ‘Even when a star is dead, you can still see its light.’

That idea of there being a glimmer of light that survives even when life has gone runs through this ambitious, challenging play. Its subject is dementia, and writer James Piercy and co-writer and performer Tayla Kenyon have chosen to explore this theme in a way that mirrors the bewilderment and confusion that arises when memory is seriously damaged. Switching back and forth in time, the writing resembles the scattered pieces of a jigsaw. It becomes clear that not all the memories that Fluff struggles to recall are pleasant ones. We see the school bullies who taunt her about her hair, and in a darkly comic scene we meet Michael Tilley, the school lothario with whom she has a disastrous encounter. Even more catastrophic is Fluff’s career as a teacher, which reveals that she has some serious flaws in her own character. Are some memories best left unrecovered?

Tayla Kenyon gives a very impressive performance of considerable range and depth. In a particularly touching sequence we see Fluff with her father now stricken with dementia. He is represented by his dressing gown, hanging empty and limp but brought to life when she dances with it around the room. Anyone who has seen a friend or relative succumb to dementia will recognise the poignancy of that scene. Later, when a doctor tells Fluff that she has inherited her father’s disorder, the devastation is overwhelming.

With several separate narrative threads presented in non-linear fashion, Fluff demands careful attention from the audience. At times the effort needed to untangle the threads distances one from engaging emotionally with Fluff’s story, but dementia is an important issue which Fluff tackles in an original and courageous fashion.

★★★☆☆  Mike Whitton, 26 February 2025