If You Fall at HOME
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
This May, Ad Infinitum return to HOME Manchester with If You Fall, a beautiful and tender production inspired by real-life personal testimonies of older people.
A beautiful and tender production inspired by real-life personal testimonies of older people.
With joyful acapella choral singing and Ad Infinitum’s signature style of physical storytelling, If You Fall shares intergenerational stories of life in care homes – the residents that live there, their relatives and the people that work there.
Shining a light on the stories of real people trying to navigate a system that is breaking at the seams.
We are all very aware of the problems surrounding the care system in the UK today. Chronic underfunding and staffing shortages mean that older people and their families and carers often feel unsupported and unable to access end-of-life care with dignity; this new performance seeks to shine a light on the stories of real people trying to navigate a system that is breaking at the seams.
The production focuses on two characters – Margaret and Norson – and builds a vivid and richly comical vignette of the lives they have lived. Margaret is a green-fingered beacon in her local community, who loves singing, while Norson is cracking in the kitchen and enjoys cricket and fishing. Both are surrounded by their loving families. However, what happens when you lose your independence and all of those things that you enjoy?
If You Fall asks how we can better support and look after older people in society.
Before and during the Covid pandemic, Ad Infinitum conducted extensive research and interviews with care providers and care users in Bristol and the UK and produced a two-season podcast, Home from Home: Journey’s into Care for Older Adults, as a result. If You Fall is a performative continuation of this exploration and asks how we can better support and look after older people in society.
There will be two performances with integrated BSL and captions on Saturday 6 May (matinee) and the evening of Wednesday 10 May.
Ad Infinitum are a multi-award-winning, internationally acclaimed theatre company. We’re thrilled that they return to HOME following their sold-out run of Extraordinary Wall of Silence in 2020 and A Small Gathering, a digital film made as part of HOME’s Homemakers programme during the period of lockdown.
