Mcclure’s uplifting passion project brought shared hope
In My Life by The Beatles is one of the all-time greats – a moving meditation on nostalgia and memory, love and loss. Sung by a choir of people with dementia, it became almost unbearably poignant. The concluding part of Our Dementia Choir with Vicky Mcclure (BBC One), the actress’s quest to raise awareness of how music therapy can improve the lives of dementia patients, found the plucky 20 vocalists preparing for their performance to 2,000 people at Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall. Even before they started trying to remember lyrics and deal with stage fright, however, the daily challenges faced by those living with dementia posed problems.
Maurice, 87, was a former professional tenor who once sang for the Queen, but had lost his range and tone, much to his palpable frustration. Former teacher Chris, 67, had weeklong stretches of silence, broken only to insult his endlessly patient wife Jane. The choir lifted his spirits and learning In My Life put him back in touch with his emotions. Chris was chosen to sing a solo, as was sweetvoiced Anita, 70, whose Alzheimer’s had destroyed her confidence.
Away from the rehearsal room, Professor Sebastian Crutch continued
his experiments into music’s ability to alleviate symptoms. In a world first, willing volunteers from the choir were wired up to a state-of-the-art brain scanner to see how listening to music opened up their neural pathways, defying the damage that dementia had caused. Music can’t cure, clearly, but it can quickly ease symptoms and improve quality of life. The film acquired a campaigning dimension as an impassioned Mcclure pushed for music therapy to be used more widely.
On paper, the Line of Duty actress seemed a rather random choice to front this series – it’s more the territory of the BBC’S usual choirmaster, Gareth Malone – but her personal connection made this a passion project. Mcclure’s grandmother Iris, her beloved “Nonna”, lived with the condition and died in 2015. Mcclure made an engaging and empathetic host, tenderly holding the hands of sufferers and carers while listening to their stories.
The concert was a triumph. Chris and Anita nailed their solos. There wasn’t a dry eye on the stage, in the audience or on my sofa. Daniel, the youngest sufferer here at just 31, paid tribute to the friendships they’d formed: “It’s the sort of support we can’t get anywhere else. It’s a new family.”
Before the credits rolled, Mcclure dedicated this powerful programme to her grandmother. To witness the magical ways in which music helped these people was a privilege and pleasure.
On Grand Designs: The Street (Channel 4), it was, well, the end of the road. The pioneering Oxfordshire project of building a brand new street of 10 dwellings from scratch was nearing completion. The last self-build house belonged to likeable, laid-back retirees Pauline and Godfrey, who were downsizing the family home. They commissioned a factory-built modular bungalow which took mere weeks to be assembled.
However, when an unsympathetic mortgage provider derailed their plans, the couple were left homeless. Pauline was forced to return to work, while their plot stood empty. Could they find a solution and witness their dream home being craned into place? Of course they could.
Whizzy graphics explained the architectural process. Time-lapse photography sped up construction until it resembled a Benny Hill sketch. Ageless presenter Kevin Mccloud was as endearingly enthusiastic as ever. He found time for some environmental finger-wagging – compulsory on factual programming nowadays – by waxing lyrical about “hempcrete”, “photovoltaic solar panels” and yoga studios made from sustainable lentils. I may have made that last one up.
As ever, self-building seemed a stressful process. Families lived apart for months. Setbacks blew budgets. Relationships ended. Nervous breakdowns ensued. Frankly, give me a solid Victorian terrace any day.
Five years in the making, this quirky new community was complete. A cluster of 10 unique homes had sprung up on a patch of waste ground, like toadstools on the forest floor. The residents – some of them lovely, some insufferably smug – celebrated with a party in a bunting-draped marquee, quite possibly borrowed from The Great British Bake Off. Let’s just hope none of the houses had soggy bottoms.
Our Dementia Choir with Vicky Mcclure ★★★★
Grand Designs: The Street ★★★