{"id":1178284,"date":"2026-08-31T02:42:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-31T02:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1178284\/"},"modified":"2026-08-31T02:42:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T02:42:17","slug":"this-actor-was-told-he-had-alzheimers-now-hes-performing-a-one-man-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1178284\/","title":{"rendered":"This actor was told he had Alzheimer&#8217;s, now he&#8217;s performing a one-man show"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">At that point, some actors may have stepped back from the pressure of performing in front of a live audience.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But &#8220;out of the blue&#8221; a call came in from someone Marinker had worked with closely in the past &#8211; Dave Wybrow, the director of the Cockpit Theatre in London.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The idea was to put on Krapp&#8217;s Last Tape, an intense one-man play in which an ageing writer listens back to recordings of his younger self, remembering a lifetime of regrets and missed opportunities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a dynamite show and a dynamite piece of writing,&#8221; says Wybrow, whose mother also lived with memory problems at the end of her life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rehearsals have been running since the end of June to give Marinker extra time to practise, and a whole team assembled to make the play happen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A stage manager will stand next to the set throughout the performances, autocue screens will be dotted around the theatre, and Marinker will be wearing a tiny earpiece so he can be quickly prompted if he forgets his lines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Wybrow is adamant this is not about &#8220;covering up&#8221; Marinker&#8217;s illness, but showing that collaborative, creative work is still more than possible after a dementia diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">From day one, Marinker says he did not have any concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Dave asked would I like to do it, and I was just &#8216;Yes. Oh yes, yes, yes, yes!'&#8221; he says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I&#8217;ll still get nerves [on the first night] but I know how to deal with them \u2013 that&#8217;s just the adrenalin.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At that point, some actors may have stepped back from the pressure of performing in front of a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1178285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3940],"tags":[4080,77,16,15],"class_list":["post-1178284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117187821327252425","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1178284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1178284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1178285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1178284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1178284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1178284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}