The saying ‘still waters run deep’ can aptly be used to describe Lita Doolan’s audio play The Shape Of Things Undone. Beneath its quiet, understated simplicity lies a profound meditation on having dementia, the emotional toll caring for such people round the clock, as well as the systemic underappreciation of those working on the ‘front line’.

One could describe the play as ‘cut from the same cloth’ as Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, with its attention to detail of the mundane, its darkly comic undertone, as well as the layers of loneliness, grief and societal isolation. At the play’s heart is Christine (Julie Broadbent), who is working the night shift at Hawthorn Care Home. The matter-of-fact description of heating a cold sandwich in the staff room’s microwave at 4am underscores the abject misery and separation from the world at large.

As Christine mulls on her surroundings, we learn that the care home is in a transitional phase – from caring about the elderly to focusing on genome sequencing so that within individuals, the likelihood of dementia and other ailments can be predicted with a high degree of precision. But this ‘arm’s-reach’ emphasis of ‘caring’ for the lab technicians requires expansion of space – encroaching on not only the staff room and rooms of the residents, but also the outside space that was previously devoted to the scattering of ashes. Christine’s tone isn’t one of anger, but I defy anyone to listen the description of the impersonal, myopic values of modern day ‘healthcare’ and not be incensed by what is ‘justified’ in the name of ‘progress’.

Be that as it may, what keeps the play on an even keel is Christine’s wry sense of humour and her keen observational attention to detail. When reading the comments made in the suggestion box, Christine notes that someone would like a clock in the staff room that doesn’t lie. But as she herself admits: “The one in the corridor says it’s Tuesday every day – and I’m starting to believe it.”

But just as we’re chuckling about this observation, we’re also stopped dead in out tracks by the statement: “Love my job, hate being this tired.” If family members over time are exhausted by providing round the clock care for loved ones, aren’t professional carers susceptible to tiredness too – especially if they have their own loved ones to look after?

Although he’s not always referred to directly, Christine’s father casts a large shadow over the play. Through him and his periods of lucidity and ‘forgetfulness’, Christine reappraises her relationship with her father and her approach as a carer to people with dementia. Doolan’s play is a goldmine for profound insights and quotable lines, but in the context of communicating to those with dementia, Doolan/Christine has this to say: “My job wasn’t to correct him. It was to sit there like a paperweight and go ‘I see you, I’m here. You’re still a person – even if you mislaid my name’.”

Doolan’s deftness at interweaving the ‘mundane’ with emotional truths and cultural echoes can also be seen in her use of ‘dust’ in the play. Layers of meaning coalesce as the scientific explanation for dust and its significance in Greek drama overlap with the sentiment of traces of ourselves remaining in the lives of others and the world around us. It’s a form of remembrance and of ‘immortality’ – evidence that you were once here and mattered…

© Michael Davis 2026

The Shape of Things Undone is an audio drama that is a part of the digital section of the Brighton Fringe Festival (Brighton Fringe Streaming). It is available to listen to at: https://www.brightonfringe.org/events/the-shape-of-things-undone/