An Ageless & Timeless Performance

I have always been intrigued by the varying cultural attitudes to growing old and how, in some countries, passing of the years is associated with 'wisdom', whilst in others it remains a symbol of weakness and infirmity.

Anniversary at the West Yorkshire Playhouse is a beautiful piece of contemporary theatre that explores the highs and lows of life, and those things that shape us with every passing year - births, deaths, marriages, events, happenings and experiences.

However, at the core of this production was the concept of age and life experience, and it was twice as effective because it was performed by a group of older performers.

Poignant and deeply emotional - one audience member wept visibly - it was so very real and left you with a lump in your throat because there was no acting, there didn't need to be.

This was a performance by real people, professionals, amateurs, warts and all. There was the elderly gentleman who took pleasure in his twilight years gazing at his collection of English bone China, whilst another lady recounted how, during a trip to Japan, she wept at the 'freshness' of her sushi.....the partially sliced fish was still wagging its tail on her plate.

If the Playhouse is the place of incredible stories, then the creative team certainly lived up to its promise this time.

Life is both wonderful and cruel and leaves an impression on each and every one of us. We choose to believe what we are told, or not, we cry or remain stoic when faced with crisis. We learn, we evolve. But one thing is certain, everything we experience be it in childhood or wider 'life' shapes each of us for better or worse.

Director Alan Lyddiard brought together his cast of contemporary dancers and community performers aged between 50 - 90 so that they could share and be inspired by each other's lives.



Seventy one year old Namron, a leading member of London Contemporary Dance Company and the first black dancer to join a professional contemporary company in Britain, shared the stage with Barbara Newsome, 87, a retired office worker for the Ministry of National Insurance who attends the Playhouse's creative community initiative for the over 55s, Heydays.

The concept of the 'anniversary' was the perfect linking theme that brought such disparate lives together as one, linking the various pasts with the now.....that's what happened, this was the outcome, this is where I am now.

As people cheered for the elderly lady who, for her entire life was told by her father that she was useless, "and I believed him", it was apparent that this performance touched people at a deep level and, if the ambition to take the production international is ever realised, you know it will speak to individuals across the world as universally as it did to its Leeds audience.