I was really excited by the idea of this play. I grew up close to the area it’s set in. I played on Highbury Fields and as a young teen was frequently to be found bowling in Rowans. I am also deeply committed to the idea of standing up to the stereotypes of ageing. So when the marketing said it would celebrate the former and do the latter, I thought this would be the play for me.
Sadly, I was bitterly disappointed.
24 (day): The Measure of my Dreams is, frankly, a mess.
While I fully appreciate that this is largely an amateur production, it is not one that demonstrates the amount of professional support the show has been given. It tells us it is a spontaneous whirlwind – but instead, it is an incoherent series of tableaus that offer no depth or craft leaving the audience baffled and un-entertained.
For a show that sought to challenge stereotypes of ageing, this play seemed to rather reinforce them. Liz goes from hospital to care home to funeral. She lives life vicariously through her grandson. We see less of her internal life – only really giving her a backstory through younger actors playing her younger self. She also, somewhat inexplicably, spends quite a lot of time – in both halves – sat on a toilet.
There was a great deal of joy and energy on the stage of the Almeida. There was a great deal less in the audience. That transfer of joy is the job of theatre and I am afraid this time it was lacking. The show was rambling and incoherent. There were moments when certain scenes went on far too long. The karaoke support group is a particular example, where, when we got to the third singer – and looked with some horror at the long line to come – the audience member next to me audibly groaned. My sympathies were with her – not the people on stage.
My overwhelming feeling leaving this show was that the vast cast of enthusiastic amateurs was seriously let down by the professionals who should have been charged with shaping their enthusiasm into a coherent whole. That was their job and they let the people they were paid to support and let down the audience in turn.