Pick of the day

It’s a big problem for David, 52, who can no longer take his children Dolly, 15, and Ezra, 12, to see their last remaining grandparent because he may say something horrendous.

Colin, 82, has Pick’s disease, an extraordinary form of dementia that has stripped him of his inhibitions and his memories. He doesn’t always remember who David is.

In this brave and moving film we follow David over the course of a year as he and his brother Ivor try to care for their dad in the aftermath of their mum’s death.

But it proves tough, with David enduring torrents of cursing and abuse whenever he visits.

He reveals their relationship is not one based on huge outpourings of emotion or declarations of love. “It’s mainly abusive banter,” he says.

But it’s clear that humour lies at the heart of this family. “He was very funny and I definitely owe him that,” says David, who has recently taken his family to the stage in his latest stand-up show My Family: Not The Sitcom.

During the show he tells one particularly shocking anecdote about when Colin crudely asked a woman for sex during the wake for his wife, David’s mother. It gets a big laugh.

As David is acutely aware, sometimes his dad’s disease is funny, while terribly tragic at the same time.

He has turned the cameras on his dad to raise awareness of dementia, but also admits wanting to try to forge an emotional connection with him before he dies.

And he says that if his dad can no longer understand his feelings, perhaps at least we, the viewer, can.