Born out of anger at the bungled help her partner received on his domestic deathbed, ‘Up the Junction’ author Nell Dunn’s verbatim piece about palliative care is intensely personal. Indeed, Dunn has put herself in the piece: Linda Broughton plays her as a vivacious old lady, eyes full of anger and warmth. Her story is upsetting; those told by the other nine actors are less so, with Macmillan nurses and end-of-life carers coming out as caring, if fallible.
The sheer volume of accounts somewhat marginalises Dunn’s angry voice and while I’m sure that was her intent, this cluttered production would benefit from being pared back to maybe four powerful stories.
Yet ‘Home Death’ is deeply moving. It’s simultaneously agonizing and uplifting to listen to people talk frankly about the dying process; a dignified death can be an intensely beautiful thing; being robbed of that, a tragedy. At a time when the national conversation about how we choose to die is scaling increasingly sophisticated heights, this resonates strongly.