Last night Stuart and I went to watch Meera Syal star as a chef in mental decline in Tanika Gupta’s A Tupperware of Ashes at the Dorfman Theatre on London’s glitzy South Bank.
The play could be unrelentingly bleak – and it doesn't hold back in showing just how debilitating a descent into terminal dementia can be. Nor how the pandemic robbed countless families of the chance to say goodbye to loved ones. Nonetheless, it's a highly watchable piece given the subject matter with much humour.
There are distinct shades of King Lear too. Meera Syal plays Queenie, a powerful matriarch and owner of a Michelin-starred Indian restaurant in London. When she is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she divides her assets between her three children – who she also expects to let her live with them in turn. However, this reopens wounds that have never truly healed since the loss of her husband and their father.
Syal brings Queenie vividly to life. She’s fiercely proud and quick to cut her children down with her words. As her condition worsens and her sense of time begins to dislocate, the glimpses of her early years in Calcutta and her memories of the racism she faced when arriving in the UK add a greater poignancy to the loss of the life she has fought to forge.
The production hits some powerful emotional beats as Queenie gradually disappears into herself. There’s also an impish turn from Zubin Varla as Ameet, her dead husband, who she imagines speaking to her as her sense of reality fades. This lightens proceedings but importantly, along with some entertainingly filthy language, also captures the vibrancy and energy of her life and history.
Great show.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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