8:00am Saturday 25th August 2012
By Karen Morley
Colder Than Here
Theatre by the Lake, Keswick
A mother of two grown up daughters has terminal cancer and aims to prepare her husband and children for the world without her – and finding her perfect last resting place is the means she plans to use to bring everyone together.
This is a drama which plays with your emotions, from laugh-to-tears within a single sentence.
The four-hander production creates an onstage family that comes together with dramatic success, with brilliant direction from Abigail Anderson.
Maggie Tagney as Myra captures the shrinking of the human form as cancer takes control of a body. You can feel the pain the disease is creating within every bone of Myra thanks to Tagney’s brilliant portrayal of the brave mother using her last days to plan for the future of her family.
Philip Rham as her restrained, English, middleclass surveyor husband Alec gives a moving performance and Augustine Seymour as Jenna the young wild child and Joannah Tincey as the older, more sensible Harriet are brilliant together as the battling siblings.
It’s hard to believe that Laura Wade wrote this play when she was just 25 as there is a mature depth of human understanding.
Karen Morley-Chesworth
Colder Than Here runs until November 9
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