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This play is about everywoman: the adult who was once a girl, the mum who used to be a bit wild, the mad person who was once sane. It’s not a bad way to tackle the subject of early-onset
Alzheimer’s, but in the end I felt bludgeoned by _Plaques and Tangles _as it set out the issues; relentlessly, ferociously, endlessly reinforcing itself. But, you know, it didn’t need to be
like that; I got it the first time. Dementia is one of the subjects du jour of London theatre. I am sure _Plaques and Tangles _(a description of what happens in an Alzheimer’s brain) would
have been much fresher if I had not seen _The Father_, which brilliantly, coolly helps us to see how dementia works. However, this play is the opposite; it is hot, literally at one point,
when a burning cake-pan filled this tiny theatre upstairs with smoke. And it is hot in another way, with a bit of sex-under-the-sheets and endless scenes of people in their underwear, even
at a New Year’s Eve party, which seemed a bit cold for England. This is a new play by Nicola Wilson and she has simply overdone it. It is told in flashbacks on a set (designs by Andrew D
Edwards) dominated by a bed and a rather fantabulous ceiling light. We don’t just see the life of Megan (played by Monica Dolan with a wonderful familiarity). In the most effective bit, we
also see Megan as a young girl, played brilliantly by Rosalind Eleazar. Yet the pace (Lucy Morrison directs) is frenetic and exhausting. For we also see Megan’s husband, mother, children,
carer. The plot twists, turns and, at one point, does a cartwheel. In the end I quite lost track of it all. Spare me from subplots, I thought, even in their underwear; from teenage angst,
ghosts knitting, clichéd analysts, ludicrous white hair and horror outcomes. We didn’t need all of that, er, drama. We got it the first time. BOX OFFICE: 020 7565 5000, TO NOV 21
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