Interview: Robert Lonsdale On PLAQUES AND TANGLES

Hi Robert. Thanks for speaking to us on your break - Plaques and Tangles, about a woman and her nearest and dearest coping with early-onset dementia, sounds fascinating. How did you feel when you first got the script?

It's one of those scripts that reads quite cinematically. The imagery is ambitious. It's risky, and you're moved, and then you realise that logistically some things have to change a little. The thing I like most is that a lot of the time Alzheimer's can be quite forensic and removed from the individual, to a point where the person is just a subject being talked about. Here we stay with that individual throughout, right through to the end. It fully takes part in Alzheimer's, and the writer has done a swathe of research on a variety of experiences. If you just focus on the carer, that can seem, I think, a little bit emotionally removed. People speak about "living with Alzheimer's". You can live with it. This is about early-onset, and with that there's the particular tragedy that you know you're going to lose your faculties - you find out you have the gene and that you will get early-onset. All the onus is on Monica Dolan - she's outstanding. She carries a lot of that responsibility. She and Ferdy Roberts play the couple Megan and Jez when they're older, and Rosalind Eleazer and I play the younger set, where she has the knowledge that she has this gene, and how that impacts on the relationship.

When we talked before, you said that when you look at doing a role you look at the potential for researching a character and immersing yourself in it - it sounds like this offered you that opportunity.

Yes. Well, there's also the other side of it - my character is a bit in the dark about it; you hanker to research something, and then in some cases it can do more harm than good - sometimes my ignorance would be the perfect mimic of my character's ignorance. To say it's fascinating sounds unsympathetic, but there's also the way people think dementia is a psychological thing when it's a fully physiological thing. There are these tangles that grow out and slowly close down the sections of the working brain. It varies hugely from one person to the next - stereotypically people assume that it's short-term memory that's lost, but sometimes it could be that they've lost the words to describe it. They know what they had for breakfast, but they don't have the word for it: "Oh, what's it called?" Or personality can change - they start losing their sense of what is socially acceptable. Every experience of Alzheimer's is unique to that individual. This piece doesn't go for what is stereotypically "Alzheimer's". Our character is a lexicographer, so she really values words, and when they start to go it is another one of those sad aspects.

It's a very personalised tragedy.

Yes. The thing I love most about this is that it's from the perspective of the person living with Alzheimer's. One of the most painful parts must be that people treat you like you're an invalid, treat you like you've already gone. That's one of the saddest parts.

In contrast, TV viewers can currently see you on E4 in the comedy 'Chewing Gum'.

I've always wanted to do comedy. Even though I'm not funny in this show, you need an understanding of comedy to play the straight man. I saw it the other night and I'm so proud of what they've come up with. It's really worked. It's broad - my mum doesn't like anything, but even she said she enjoyed it and she laughed! They've done an extraordinary job.

Can we expect to see you back in the West End soon? I know it's a really dull question - but we want to know!

*laughs* You can make it seem like a decision, but really it's not about where the work is, it's the nature of the roles. I would love to be back in the West End, and I say that really emphatically. It's the whole experience. The Royal Court is another place I've always dreamed of working at - the Donmar, the Royal Court, the National, even when I say them, it makes me feel, "That's why I'm doing this!"

Robert Lonsdale stars in Plaques and Tangles, at the Jerwood Theatre Upstairs, the Royal Court, until Nov 21.

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