Short Memory 
Golden Goose Theatre, London

YOU would be forgiven for thinking that a play about Handel’s Messiah, short selling and Alzheimer’s disease was born of a theatrical version of Ready Steady Cook — three disparate themes, pulled out of a hat, to test the skill of the playwright in weaving together a compelling and convincing narrative. 

Richard Roques has passed this entirely hypothetical challenge with flying colours: Short Memory is an adroit exploration of love, loss and the redemptive power of music, via three generations of the same family, over the course of several years. 

The play begins with an on-stage choir concluding the first part of Handel’s masterpiece recounting the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ — a favourite with community choirs all over the world — whereupon husband-and-wife singers Adam and Nancy (Peter Saracen and Janet Behan) meet their grandson Simon (James Fletcher) in the audience. 

Simon, however, is less struck by the Messiah than he is by a young man seated next to his grandfather, Jack (Dan Wolff), who he determines to meet, as well as by the conspicuous absence of his father Gerald, a hedge fund manager. 

The “interval” finishes only to begin again, a year later, with Simon now a member of the choir, an employee at his father’s firm and in a relationship with the handsome stranger, whom he introduces to Gerald at work one day.

Gerald (Jonathan Hansler), exuding all the imperiousness and asperity becoming of a fund manager, shrewdly probes Jack before inducting them both (and the audience) in the dark art of short selling — essentially a way for financial institutions to make money out of a decline in asset prices, the absurdities of which were recently exposed by the GameStop debacle.

This provides the basis for the play’s tension: Adam’s Alzheimer’s, cleverly teased at the beginning and advancing every year, becomes increasingly difficult for Nancy to cope with, culminating in a heart-wrenching confrontation with Simon and Jack.

But a new drug in development appears to give her hope — the same drug that mercenary Gerald is banking on to fail and make him a lot of money.

Clever time shifts and narrative Easter eggs give laudable momentum to a play which culminates in a satisfying twist, and there are plenty of jokes — especially for those who sing in community choirs — to offset the necessary exposition of the frankly baffling financial machinations that, as Roques points out, are deliberately opaque.

Our confusion goes hand-in-hand with Adam’s, whose deterioration, though inexorable, is occasionally forestalled by moments of lucidity, including his standing to sing the famous Hallelujah chorus with his beloved choir.

A cure for Alzheimer’s may be a long way off, Roques seems to say in this fine play, but Handel will always be with us.

Runs until April 23. Tickets: goldengoosetheatre.co.uk.