Reflections on Through It All Together

Just over two weeks ago, my play, Through It All Together, was performed for the 28^th and final time at the Leeds Playhouse, for this run at least. It was a project that began as an idea five years ago about doing a story about a family living with dementia and honouring Marcelo Bielsa’s time at Leeds. I feel incredibly grateful to have been able to put this story on stage and to have had such an amazing group of people help me with it.

I am aware that a post like this can seem self-congratulatory or egotistical, but honestly, my overwhelming feeling is gratitude, and my main intention is to capture some of the moments that statistics or reviews can’t capture and thank those who supported this. I was overwhelmed by the number of responses, comments, emails and messages I received from people. Some of my favourites:

- A lady who found me to tell me she had seen the show and loved it. She said she was in the women’s toilets after the performance, and from one of the cubicles, someone started to sing “Marching on Together”. Then, from the next cubicle, another joined in, followed by the next, and then the next, until they were all singing “Marching on Together”.

- A Barnsley fan and his partner, a Sheffield Wednesday supporter, came up to me with tears in their eyes to say they came back to see it and even ended up singing “Marching on Together” at the end.

- An email from a man saying the play helped him come to terms with his father’s passing, and realising it wasn’t just him struggling.

- A man who stayed for an hour after the matinee, going through the accompanying exhibition. When some of the cast saw him, he was emotional and spoke effusively about the show, saying he didn’t go to the theatre and wasn’t sure he could afford it, but was so glad he had come. He said the community theme of the show really resonated, and it has inspired him to give more back and take a bigger part in his community and the wider world.

Thank you to Mick, Lyn, Warren and the many people living with dementia and their carers who helped to inform and inspire the script. We wanted to do something different around dementia, show the challenges but also how it can reveal as well as take away, with Howard finding a love for art. Ultimately, we wanted to send home the message that the family will get ‘through it all together’ and that love can help them overcome whatever is in store. I am constantly blown away by and inspired by how powerful love is and how it can get people through.

Thanks also to James Brining and Rio Matchett for making this possible in the first place and supporting the script development. To the amazing cast – Reece Dinsdale, Shobna Gulati, Natalie Davies, Dean Smith, Everal A. Walsh – it was as if each role was written specifically for you! To the actors involved in the research and development phase - including the amazing Ben Wilson! A huge thank you to Gitika Buttoo for the unbelievable direction and for making some inspired decisions throughout the process, and a special thank you also to Nicky Taylor, who has been on the journey with me from the beginning, with help on the script and introducing me to some wonderful people involved with dementia. The work Nicky does has been so inspiring, and we are lucky to have her here in Leeds.

And a thank you to the rest of the creative team: Amanda Stoodley for the set and costume design, Jason Taylor for the lighting design, Annie May Fletcher for the sound design, Neil Bettles for the movement. To Rachel Marriner in marketing, Zoe Bailey in production and to all the fantastic people at the Leeds Playhouse who helped on this show and made me feel supported.

As always, thanks to my number one supporter – my beautiful, amazing, talented wife Claire. To my 8-month-old son, Louis, who came to press night and made his dad incredibly happy. Finally, to my Gran, Kay Flynn, who lives with dementia and is back home in Roscommon. Gran helped raise me and was like a parent to me, and I am who I am in large part because of her. I sometimes wonder where my desire to write stories comes from, and I think of my Gran, who would sit reading all the time. Gran never had the opportunities I do, but I have them mainly because of her. I owe it to her to make the most of those opportunities, and I love telling her about the play because for her, each time it feels new, and she lights up with happiness. Some people might think it’s sad that she won’t remember it, but I like to think of it as an opportunity to make her happy again.

To quote Marcelo Bielsa, after promotion with Leeds, ‘This is going to be a lovely memory for all my life, and it was beautiful. Everything that happened was so beautiful. Unforgettable.’

Thanks to everyone who supported.