Shropshire Talking Newspaper has helped with the creation of an audio play inspired by a daughters journey with her dads Alzheimers.

Shropshire Star

A cast of twelve has been used to create an audio play written by a Shrewsbury lady and inspired by her difficult journey with her dads alzheimers.

Transcript

00:00So we're here at the West Shropshire Talking Newspaper at the Roy Fletcher Centre in Shrewsbury

00:06and a bit of an interesting project that's been going on. Victoria we should start with you really

00:12just fill us in it's a bit of a tribute to your father isn't it? It is yes absolutely yeah

00:17my dad had early onset Alzheimer's and unfortunately he passed away last November

00:24and I had been writing this play for some time obviously going through living with

00:29somebody with Alzheimer's and things and the effects that it has on the person and on the

00:33relatives and those around them and decided to finish the play as a tribute you know to dad

00:40sort of prompted me to get it done and get something done with it and get it off my laptop

00:45basically. So did you know about the Talking Newspaper here then? Had you heard of them

00:51before? How did the link come with these guys? Yeah so the link came through based in Hill

00:58Amateur Dramatics really so I approached them initially to see if they would help with the

01:02project and if they'd be interested to take the play on and they passed the play on to Chris Eldon

01:08Lee and he said yeah this looks really interesting we'd like to get involved which was fantastic

01:14and it kind of grew and evolved from there and Chris mentioned that about the Talking

01:19Newspaper and perhaps recording it as a podcast play so that's then how we got in touch with Chris

01:25Chris Lerman and the team here so yeah really grateful it's been fantastic. So from a producer

01:30point of view what's kind of been your role on the project then? Is it a one-person narrative?

01:36Is it we talking a sound effects play out you know what's the workings of it as such?

01:42Well my working background was a radio 4 producer so I'm usually recognised as a quality

01:48script which could convert to a radio production and we approached the Basin Hill Amateur Dramatic

01:53Society and 12 actors all auditioned for parts there were more than 12 parts and they all came

01:59down here on a couple of weekends and recorded the script onto Chris's computer screen here

02:04this was just a voice track then I took it all away and I did the sound effects so they did the

02:09editing and produced a full-length drama in two parts and it's really worked very well it's a very

02:14moving piece yeah it starts off quite modestly about a lady who's just beginning to get Alzheimer's

02:20and of course as the play progresses so her Alzheimer's gets worse and worse

02:23and we learn how the family have to react and cope with that but the particularly exciting

02:28thing about this play is that Victoria's written a part for Alzheimer's itself she's characterised

02:34Alzheimer's as a person called Al and so we hear the conversation between the lady who's

02:39poorly Sybil and Al the imaginary Al as her condition develops and it's a really useful

02:45tool for people who are facing up to that problem in their family to learn what's going to be coming

02:50up in the near future yeah and Chris um it's been been is it 85 minutes long was that what

02:57yeah and have you done that this is kind of a project here before no we've never done anything

03:02like this in the studio before as you can see we've got a fabulous studio here that the West

03:06Shropshire Talking Newspaper has at the bottom of the Roy Fletcher Centre and we produce a

03:11Talking Newspaper every week on a Wednesday evening here and the rest of the time this

03:16this studio isn't really used so so it was it was a fabulous fabulous use of that um I think

03:22one of the connections between the Talking Newspaper and Victoria and the Baston Hill

03:28Amateur Dramatic Society was one of our volunteers who's also a member of the society called Rob

03:33Hutchings so he he was a link as well and he actually Rob has a part in it as well doesn't

03:38he yeah right yeah yeah so if if people want to you know listen to this how do they go about

03:46finding it Victoria will tell you go on Victor yeah thank you um so yeah you can find it on

03:51all podcast platforms so if you've got Spotify or if you've got Apple Podcasts or even Amazon Music

03:58so you can ask Alexa to play it as well um so yeah every podcast platform that's going basically

04:04you'll find it on there and it's called living without part one and living without part two

04:09so what's your have you written plays before or I have yeah so this is um the first play that I've

04:15actually had uh produced which is fantastic and I'm so so chuffed to bits with it um so yeah I've

04:20got a lot of plays still sat on my laptop waiting to lift off the yeah yeah so hopefully you know

04:26where to if you want a recording studio now don't you yeah yeah so what do you what are you hoping

04:31that people get from this I guess I guess it's partly an informative thing isn't it and for

04:37people in a similar situation it is yeah I think that um people hopefully can relate to it because

04:43Alzheimer's touches so many lives you know it's like you know statistics wise it's like one in

04:48three or one in two of us um will have develop Alzheimer's in our lifetime or um know somebody

04:54who has it and and experience that and we did an interesting thing at one of our read-throughs

04:59didn't we where we asked all the cast if they had any experience of anyone with Alzheimer's

05:03and their family yeah and they they wrote down the names on a piece of paper and all held the

05:08piece of paper up and it was really a touching and moving moment yeah yeah involved the project

05:12you're somebody who's had Alzheimer's yeah yeah well fantastic project and what a great

05:19collaboration between the talking talking newspaper and yourself so shall we hear just a

05:23little excerpt excerpt of it yeah go on Chris press your magic button okay I will press my

05:30magic button like I say it's all saved on the computer here yeah um we're going to play it

05:34off for the earphone I think yeah oh I can't think of any now you put me on the spot but you can be

05:42well hard work sometimes

05:46but you loves me

05:52it must be strange hearing it come to life in audio Victoria yeah

05:56yeah absolutely yeah a bit strange but exciting

06:02you'll wake up with a bad back again

06:06so how many people did you have in total Danny recording Chris

06:10there were probably about 12 12 12 yeah yeah yeah and like I say the we did it in two in two

06:18sessions about three hours at a time was it something like that and that was just recording

06:22the voices Chris did an enormous amount of work putting the sound effects in afterwards yeah um

06:27but so if you've got around a room full of gadgets at your house with door knockers and

06:32different sounding things yeah but a lot of it comes now electronically oh of course yeah yeah

06:38yeah great stuff but they were all extremely well rehearsed yeah

06:44everything was it was very professional I'm impressed yeah and it's also very funny

06:50ironically yeah about such a serious subject yeah very very funny and it does have a very

06:55tranquil conclusion which is yeah yeah well thank you guys and um well done Victoria thank you so

07:02nice to meet you thank you

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