Donny's Brain review, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs

Remembrance play

Donny's memory has gone. He pushed too hard on the accelerator one morning. As well as killing the cat, he got a piece of metal lodged in his brain. In his hospital bed he calls out for Emma, the single mother he abandoned three years earlier to run off and marry cake-baking Trish. Why won't Emma visit, and who is this irritating woman smothering him with love? As Trish struggles with Donny's rejection and textbooks on the workings of the brain, Emma is pushed into the seductive orbit of the man who broke her heart. His declarations of love heap insult on injury, but as he continues his detailed recollections of their funnier moments, she is pushed into reassessing what went wrong.

It is the strangest of love triangles, facilitated by a junior doctor who is studying Donny's progress. Are the women's memories of how their relationships with Donny developed, correct? And what about Flea, the daughter Donny raised as his own for eight years: is there anything to be salvaged for her?

Rona Munro's script crackles with great dialogue, a wonderful central character, and alarming what-ifs. We read so many stories about brain trauma; what happens if a patient's recovery is dependent on someone who no longer cares? What cruel tricks the brain - the tofu between our ears - plays on us. And if consciousness is simply electrical impulses what is the value of what we remember?

In conclusion: Directed by Anna Ledwich, this is a terrific ninety minutes of drama in an intimate space. Ryan Early as Donny is adorable. Emily Joyce is a luminous Emma, and Siobahn Hewlett a believably despairing Trish.

References
Hampstead Downstairs, tickets

Hampstead Theatre is on Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 3EU. This production is now over.