Navigating a parent's dementia - new play in Chichester

Her piece is part of the Future Theatre Makers Festival, five shows from the Chichester Festival Theatre artistic development programme across various dates between August 4-16, taking place in Chichester’s newest theatre The Nest, situated between the main theatre building and the car park.

Sticky will be performed on Wednesday, August 6 at 8pm, Friday, August 8 at 4pm and Saturday, August 9 at 6pm, a bold and tender new play told through shifting timelines, surreal humour and raw honesty, Alice says. From 1970s Belfast to a care home in Bognor Regis, Sticky is a kaleidoscopic look at how the past shapes us, what we take with us and the sticky ways we try to hold our families together.

“It's my journey with my dad's diagnosis of early-onset Alzheimer’s,” Alice says. “It was a unique and isolating experience. I began this during the lockdown. I was just wanting some kind of therapeutic outlet for what I was experiencing. He was 55 when he was diagnosed in 2014.

“And actually this morning was special. We took Stephen who is playing the character who resembles my dad to meet him in his care home, and it was actually such an important experience for all of us. It was brilliant to make that connection. Stephen does not imitate him in any way but it was very helpful to meet him. Dad is doing OK and he has got little sprinklings of his personality but unfortunately he has lost his verbal communication now, and that's one of the things that has made it such a challenging experience and one of the reasons I felt passionately that I wanted to tell this story.

“Within the show there are so many different avenues to explore in terms of ways that people might react, and it's all seen through the lens of a young adult. It is all the different ways you can try to cope which might be facing it head on and becoming an advocate for what is happening or maybe you might turn to denial and defensiveness. No one can tell you what is going happen or what you should do. I was a teenager at the time. I just didn't know.

“But growing up in the theatre industry, it became a therapeutic exercise for me to try to put this into something that I could show people. If this story can help just one teenager feel less isolated in similar circumstances, then it has been worth it.

“It is seen through the lens of Charlie. We follow her journey as she is navigating the highs and the lows and the ups and downs after the diagnosis. We have moments of her in complete denial but we also follow her on the journey to getting to know a new version of her dad. Nobody knows the ending, and I hope I have encapsulated that fact in the piece.

“I'm so thrilled to be part of the artist development programme. Chichester Festival Theatre's been part of my life for so long. I was in the youth theatre and it has been amazing now to return from a different place and to be part of this whole thing. The opportunity to put Sticky on in The Nest is just amazing and I really do hope that there will be a future life for the show. We've got a great team and we got a lot of people who are shouting for it.”

The show is part of the Future Theatre Makers Festival, five shows from the Chichester Festival Theatre artistic development programme across various dates between August 4-16.