Skip to main content Skip to footer site map
Review: THE NATURE OF FORGETTING, Shoreditch Town Hall

Review: THE NATURE OF FORGETTING, Shoreditch Town Hall

A touching tale of dismembered memories.

Review: THE NATURE OF FORGETTING, Shoreditch Town Hall Part of this year's London International Mime Festival, The Nature of Forgetting from Theatre Re dynamically tackles the topic of memory and what we do - and don't - recall through the eyes of Tom, a man with early onset dementia.

There's only a small acting cast of four (three of whom play multiple roles) plus two musicians, but this feels like a much bigger production. Physical theatre is the name of the game here and the central character's condition is explored in a way that is not shamelessly seeking pity but nevertheless engenders it through being very relatable: we all forget and, moreover, we have no idea to track what we have forgotten so when we do get a random remembrance, it can be both intriguing and saddening - how many joyful moments have we lost to the mists of time?

We first meet Tom (Guillaume Pigé) as he is being dressed by his daughter Sophie (Louise Wilcox) ahead of a visit from his mother and his friend Mike. In one of the show's few verbal exchanges, the father turns to his child, and thanks her using his wife's name. She turns away, griefstruck, as he drifts away from the present into the more redolent areas of his past.

Directed by Pigé, we are taken down the rabbit hole of Tom's mind to re-live his key memories. Calum Littley and Eygló Belafonte round out a cast that play out the laughs and japes of his school days, a frenetic bicycle ride with friends, Tom's first kiss, the wooing and marrying of Isabella (also Wilcox) and then a fateful argument with her while driving that leads to apparently tragic consequences. It is the latter that keeps butting into his thoughts and tail-ends whatever happy event his mind throws up.

The aural aspects of this show are every bit as important as the physical elements. Composer Alex Judd and colleague Nathan Gregory roll out a soundscape that complements and pumps up the flashbacks to incredibly emotional heights. From the jaunty melodies that accompany young Tom's childhood memories to the dissonant tones as we see him desperately clinging onto memories that are falling apart at the seams, the music makes this poor man's inner torment all that more heartbreaking. It brings to mind the words of Edgar Allan Poe's poem A Dream Within A Dream published a few months before his death:

I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand -

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep - while I weep!

O God! Can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

There are few words in this production with the cast expressing much of what is going through Tom's head through their acrobatic movement. The skillful writing, the punchy soundtrack and the impressive acting mean that, while it may be a largely mute performance, it is never muted.

The Nature of Forgetting is on tour around the UK until 6 June.

Photo Credit: Danilo Moroni



TREASON THE MUSICAL Takes Autumn Tour to Edinburgh, Sheffield and London Photo
This Autumn will see the highly anticipated British musical premiere its first full production in select theatres across the UK. Kicking off with a bang on 25 October at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Treason will continue to Sheffield Lyceum Theatre on 31 October and finally explode into London's Alexandra Palace from 08 – 18 November.

Tracie Bennett Will Take on Traditionally Male Role in HOW TO SUCCEED Photo
Tracie Bennett is set to star in 'How to Succeed in Business' Without Really Trying' ...and she's playing the big boss J.B.Biggley!

Photos: Inside Press Night For THE WAY OLD FRIENDS DO at the Park Theatre Photo
Check out all new photos from press night of The Way Old Friends Do at the Park Theatre!

Extra London Show At Hammersmith Apollo Announced For Phil Wangs Biggest Ever Internationa Photo
Hot on the heels of announcing a major Autumn nationwide extension for his biggest ever international tour, Phil Wang (That's My Time with David Letterman, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Live At The Apollo) announces an extra London show at the Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith on the 23rd February 2024.


From This Author - Franco Milazzo

The Daily Beast were kind enough to call me "a man with an encyclopedic knowledge of the city’s underground culture" and who am I to disagree? If you have or know of a show which is... (read more about this author)


Review: AKHNATEN, London ColiseumReview: AKHNATEN, London Coliseum
March 19, 2023

Who’s up for a three-hour long opera about the relatively unknown pharaoh Akhnaten? With the singing in Egyptian, Hebrew and Akkadian? With no surtitles? Based on the music of minimalist composer Phillip Glass? And with an entire troupe of jugglers? Us, that's who.

Review: ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST, Lyric HammersmithReview: ACCIDENTAL DEATH OF AN ANARCHIST, Lyric Hammersmith
March 18, 2023

With references ripped from the headlines, this rocket-paced update of Dario Fo and Franca Rame’s Accidental Death Of An Anarchist is at once both deeply political and utterly hilarious.

Review: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY (UK TOUR), New Wimbledon TheatreReview: GIRL FROM THE NORTH COUNTRY (UK TOUR), New Wimbledon Theatre
March 15, 2023

If John Steinbeck had been asked to create a musical, it may have looked something like this. Soundtracked by the songs of Bob Dylan, Girl From The North Country is, at heart, a bleak meditation on untimely death; not just physically due to illness, murder and suicide (though that’s here too) but also spiritually due to the death of ambition, the death of hope and, most cruelly, the death of love.

Review: PUNCHDRUNK'S THE BURNT CITY: THE VIP EXPERIENCEReview: PUNCHDRUNK'S THE BURNT CITY: THE VIP EXPERIENCE
March 13, 2023

Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City is undoubtably one of the biggest and most impressive shows in London, if only by sheer physical scale. Is it worth upgrading to their VIP experience?

Review: COPPELIA, Sadler's WellsReview: COPPELIA, Sadler's Wells
March 5, 2023

When Coppelius asks Swanhilda “do you derive more pleasure from running your finger along your lover’s skin or across the glass surface of your phone?”, Coppélia holds a brutal mirror up to modern society in a way no ballet has for quite some time.