“Paper Cranes” by Natalie Henderson
Nottingham New Theatre

This play is all about how medical discussions that aren’t discussed can have an affect on, not only the person who is affected, but by those around them, and the focus is on a young man called Aaron.

Aaron has a sister and a mother. Loves baking and studies food science at Uni. From time to time he makes paper cranes, you know those little origami birds. Of late Aaron has started to lose concentration and seems to be forgetting things and isn’t the same person at all.

The people around him try to make sense of what is happening to Aaron and understand.

Aaron and his friend, David, volunteered to take part in a medical experiment, but David has reacted in adverse way to the experiment which has brought on an early form of Alzheimers.

Blame is laid at the doctors' door and the doctors are seen to be wriggling out of their responsibilities. Dr Beadle though has a conscience and takes an extraordinary step toeards the end of the play.

Meanwhile Aaron is shown to be deteriorating quickly, losing all hold on his adult functions and memory, regressing to a sad childlike figure in his own little world.

The whole cast are making their debuts in this play and if this is where they start, I for one can't wait to see where they end. Having had the pleasure of seeing the last couple of years theatre group students, I know what an amazing talent the New Theatre produce.

Jack Lahiff (Aaron) dhows a lovely range of emotions, one minute having fun with David, arguing over who is the best baker on campus. the next we see Aaron unable to make any sense of the people around him and treating David as a stranger.

A completely believable contrast within the same role, and when you play a role like this, you can't pull on experience when the subject matter is of such a serious medical condition. This obviously shows that he has worked well with Natalie Henderson and has done research on Alzheimers to make the role believable.

Aaron's sister Lucy is passionate about bringing the medical research team brought to justice for their failings and sticks by Aaron all along. Beth Carter gets just the right amount of anger and compassion for the sister, who like Aaron, we find out later is adopted. That is an important piece of information in this play as well.

Katie Fortune plays the Mother. So frustrated in Aaron's demise and scared as well in the way that Aaron treats her in the latter months of the disease taking hold.

Aaron's friend, who actually blames himself for this as he had asked Aaron to get the forms and take part in the medical experiment with him. Rohan Rahkit plays David in a very natural performance.

Morven Cameron (Dr Beadle) shows guilt in the resulting experiment and tries to atone for the actions, She shows a compassionate side of the doctor by visiting the family, but is torn between her work and the failings in the experiment.

Dr Jones, played by Sandra Jareno,is a tough cookie and is looking for an escape clause to remove Aaron from the experiment by putting the blame on his breach of the contract. Her emotion is reserved for the possible backlash of publicity and failure of all the work that her team have put in, and not the demise of a young man's health and well being.

There are several incredibly moving scenes in this wonderfully written play. the one that did it for me was when Aaron was so deep in the hold of Alzheimers that he wanted to create 1000 paper cranes so that on the 1000th he could make a wish. His wish would be to wish his real mummy back "because everybody needs a mummy". At the end of the play he couldn't even remember how to make the paper cranes.

The flashback scenes showing Aaron and his sister and mum before the experiment are a lovely contrast, and the ending is one of the happiest, yet saddest you'll see.

This is a play like no other that I've seen and will affect a lot of people emotionally. Alzheimers is now the biggest killer of adults beating heart disease and cancer, and the more people are made aware of this sad infliction the better.

Research into Alzheimers is under funded and is frightening that any one of us can fall prey to this, and as this play highlights, at any age.

i know that the two performances on Monday night were sold out, which is wonderful at any performance but when there's a message like this to be issued with a play, Nat Henderson and her wonderful technical and production team and cast can feel that they have done their job.

Now all Nat has to do is get this story made into a film which is going to be the next tear-jerking smash.i suggest keeping the same cast as well.

“Paper Cranes” is on at the New Theatre in Nottingham only until Tuesday 21 November 2017.