Christians on Ageing’s Culture Club provides light relief from our core activities. It provides a venue for discussion of films, books, poems, TV and radio programmes which throw an interesting and provocative light on the depiction of older people in the arts.
Meetings, free of charge and open to anybody, whether a member of Christians on Ageing or not, take place via Zoom between 1.30pm and 3pm on Friday afternoons every two months. Each has a focus on a particular theme.
Our next Culture Club meeting will be at 1.30pm on Friday May 9th
Our meeting in February, courtesy of Zoom, examined the ways in which the arts depict death and dying and attracted CoA members, other readers of this Newsletter but also members of the Kent and Medway Death Café (Culture Club meetings are open to anyone to attend, for free). It prompted a very interesting and lively discussion, an account of which will appear in the spring issue of the Christians on Ageing magazine plus.
At our next meeting, at 1.30 on Friday, May 9th, we’ll look at the ways in which the arts have depicted dementia. As ever at Culture Club meetings, we much welcome attenders drawing attention to works of art they themselves consider significant, whether poems, fictional works, pieces of music, TV or radio dramas or films. Below I’ve listed a novel and four films you may wish to look at before the meeting – but no matter if you don’t.
The first two films focus on the impact of dementia on exceptional people and on their relationship with close family. Iris (the 2001 biographical drama available on Apple TV) depicts the impact of dementia on an exceptional brain (that of Iris Murdoch) and on her relationship with husband, John Bayley. The 2014 film Still Alice (Alice is exceptional in that she’s only in her 50s when she develops symptoms of dementia) garnered many awards for actress Julianne Moore. As well as exploring the challenges to a close relationship dementia can bring, Still Alice has an interesting take on the assisted dying debate. It’s available on several streaming services.
The 1986 film Clockwise, a Michael-Frayn-scripted farce starring John Cleese as a headmaster trying and constantly failing to get to a conference on time, is more mundane and feels weirdly real. I find it notable at a distance of 41 years for its compassionate, realistic, generous and amusing depiction of three older women with dementia. You can find it on Amazon Prime.
In the 2009 novel The Wilderness, short-listed for the Orange Prize for Fiction, novelist Samantha Harvey gets inside the head of successful architect Jake Jameson as he develops Alzheimer’s disease. Similarly, the multi-award-winning film starring Anthony Hopkins The Father (available on Channel 4’s streaming service) also focusses on the person developing dementia and their shifting realities.
Many of you reading this newsletter will have encountered many people living with dementia as well as their caregivers. Do come along if you’re free and join in our discussion. All you have to do is to email CoA’s Honorary Secretary, Barbara Stephens, at secretary@christiansonageing.org.uk Barbara will send you the Zoom link.
Marion Shoard, CoA Trustee
