Spilikin The Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond

As the actors take their final bow, I’m on my feet, clapping furiously with tears escaping from both eyes. I can’t actually believe that my eyes welled up because a Robot sitting in a wheelchair started to sing My Funny Valentine.

This production from Pipeline Theatre is a tender love story with a difference. Not only because it looks deeply into the long goodbye of dementia, but the fact that there’s a Robot who can act.

Sally can’t find anything, the phone’s disappeared and she wants to talk to her husband Raymond, but she can’t find him either. Her husband’s work colleague, Tim, has brought her a life-sized robot that Raymond built to keep her company when he’s away.

Judy Norman’s Sally is exquisitely observed, thought provoking and belligerent. The young Sally and Raymond, beautifully acted by both Hannah Stephen and Mike Tonkin Jones, play out Sally’s sharply focused memories of falling in love with her husband, who she calls Spilikin because he spills things all the time. Sally’s forgotten that Raymond has died, she’s just angry because he hasn’t phoned and the Robot’s not helping, even if he is talking with Raymond’s voice - he just wants to play a game.

I too caught a version of audience dementia, I forgot the Robot was er, a Robot. I felt so sorry for him when Sally was in the final stages of her illness - unable to speak she sat next to him lost forever, and that’s when he, the Spilikin, began to sing.

Helen Brown

Caption: Judy Norman with Spilikin