Review by Paul Towers, 23/2/26
The Memory of Water by Shelagh Stephenson
Directed by Leigh White
Produced by Leicester Drama Society
At The Little Theatre til Saturday 28th
February 2026
“Memory of
water” is the hypothesis that specific biological information could be still
present (whatever its form) in water samples after the biologically-active
molecules have been removed. In other words, there is always an echo of things
that happened. It has never been proven but is a nice explanation for how
memories suddenly pop up unannounced, but are not always accurate.
Shelagh
Stephenson’s emotional, hilarious tale of three sisters reuniting for their
mother’s funeral beautifully illustrates how shared memories can somehow get
twisted.
Mary (Kat Seddon) is the middle sister, a
doctor and, on the surface, the most sensible. Teresa (Laura Brookes) is the
eldest and runs a health food business with older husband Frank (Joff Brown).
She is neurotic and desperately unhappy. The youngest of the three, Catherine
(Nikki Favell) feels desperately unloved and is attention seeking in all the wrong
ways.
Mary’s married partner Mike (Jordan Handford)
won’t leave his wife but has been quite happy for the last five years to keep stringing
Mary along.
To give some context as to how the girls have
turned out as they have their dead mother Vi (Karen Gordon) keeps showing up to
Mary to twist the knife.
The Memory of Water is a laugh out loud, heartfelt
glimpse of how a shared childhood can be remembered in vastly different ways.
As always with LDS productions the acting is
exemplary with sharp direction from Leigh White on an eye catching set by Stef
Nichols.
The Memory of Water is at The Little Theatre
until Saturday 28th February.
Pics: Jonathan Pryke
https://thelittletheatre.co.uk/
https://ptheatre.blogspot.com/
