Deacon Studio Audio Drama

A devout 17th-century minister wakes in his bed, unable to breathe, with an unseen weight crushing his chest. As he prays for deliverance, he realises the creature tormenting him is the Mare, a demon from the old folklore he has spent his life dismissing. Trapped beneath it, he makes a final confession about Martha Bell, accused of witchcraft decades earlier. As dawn approaches, his faith, guilt and courage are tested in a desperate struggle for one more breath.

He was never an easy man to love, but he was always, unmistakably, himself, sharp, curious, infuriatingly certain he's right. Now the words and music are starting to slip. His house of thirty years is less familiar by the day. His daughter is doing what daughters do: showing up, covering for him, learning to lie kindly about where her mother is. Same Room, Different Furniture follows them from the first small cracks to the last quiet afternoon, through arguments about what their children deserve to know, a game of cheated-at rummy, and one devastating morning that changes everything. Funny, tender, and completely honest about what it means to love someone who is disappearing in front of you. Join them on their journey as their relationship develops alongside his dementia. Content note: Contains themes of dementia, family caregiving, and bereavement.

Why did he give up acting and take to a life of taxi driving and arguing with Chekov, the cat? What egregious event triggered this withdrawal from the life he loved? Will he ever return to acting again - and in what role? Shakespeare? Stoppard? Something else…