“My name is Harry Castle. Before I forgot.”

After an incident between his roommate and their carer at his assisted living flat, Harry unwillingly finds himself back home with his family: permanently busy and pre-occupied daughter Theresa and adult grandchildren Keith and Laurie. Distracted with their own lives, how can they possibly provide the support Harry needs?

Harry’s Home’ was originally a one act play I directed for community theatre group Theatre at Baddow in Essex. Twelve years later, it became an audio drama about dementia.

I was looking for something to stage on the theme of ‘Memory’ and by chance, was introduced to Hannah Puddefoot. She told me about a play she’d written about a Dementia and Alzheimer’s sufferer forced to move out of his sheltered accommodation after an incident involving his flatmate and back in with his family. They love him and want to help, but they really don’t know the best way to go about it – plus they have chaotic lives of their own. It was a perfect moment of serendipity and the first performance took place in April 2013 at a local studio theatre.

I always felt Harry’s Home deserved a bigger audience. Its subject matter, sensitive handling, relatable characters – and humour – resonated with everyone who saw the small, original production, but I had neither the skills nor the experience to take it further back then. Twelve years on, I finally feel I’ve acquired both and I’m now of an age where it has even more resonance for me and the people around me. Both of my parents were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in the last two years. This inspired me to make an audio drama about dementia.

With a few professional radio dramas under my belt, I contacted Hannah to see if she’d be interested in adapting Harry’s Home for audio. Fortunately she was and working with script editor Colin Brake, she turned it into a 75 minute radio play.

This is a personal project with a lot of resonance for both me and Hannah, so while I’ve recruited friends and colleagues at B7 Media to help produce it, this is a not-for-profit production. As such, creating this audio drama about dementia is a labour of love for all involved and many have friends or family personally affected by the disease.

UPDATE: (13 Jan 2025) recording studio The Soundhouse joined us a co-producers and very generously donated two days of studio time, allowing us to schedule in the recording of Harry’s Home – so we’ll be heading to Acton in mid-March!

UPDATE (1st April 2025) I’m delighted to confirm that recording of Harry’s Home has wrapped and after a short break (I’ve been on holiday!) work is starting on post-production.

While our Indiegogo campaign has closed, you can still support the production via Ko-Fi:

https://ko-fi.com/harryshome

Follow updates on production at @HarrysHomeAudio on Instagram.

THE CAST

Phil Davis HARRY

Phil Davis’ career spans 50 years in TV, film and theatre with roles in Poldark, Bleak House, Slow Horses and Victor in the TV series Trying. He’s also known for his role as Chalky in Quadrophenia and has worked regularly with director Mike Leigh. A 2013 article in The Guardian described him as “the unsung hero of British character acting” and “a British acting great” because “he can play men so gentle you’d like to keep them as pets… Or he might bite your hand off”.

Nicola Bryant THERESA

Nicola Bryant’s career spans over 35 years in theatre, television and radio and is best known for her role as the American companion Peri in Doctor Who opposite both Peter Davison and Colin Baker — a part she played for three years and continues to reprise in the Big Finish audio dramas. Other audio dramas include Dark Shadows, The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, Iris Wildethyme, The Confessions of Dorian Grey, The Companion Chronicles, UNIT, and Judge Dredd.

Timothy Blore KEITH

Tim comes from Essex and grew up a stone’s throw from where Harry’s Home was staged for the first time in Great Baddow, Chelmsford. He graduated from Drama Studio London in 2017 and has since worked in stage, screen and audio.

As a stage actor he has performed at The Noel Coward Theatre in London’s West End as well as in numerous theatres in London and productions around the country. He has just returned from a short musical tour taking him to New York, Cyprus and London with his cello. His most notable screen work includes War Blade, Drained, The King’s Man, Rozkvet Colosseum for History/BBC and the recently released Rivals on Disney+.

Rose Quentin LAURIE

Joshua Manning ROB

Joshua hails from Edinburgh and graduated from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School in 2011. Since then he featured in numerous radio dramas for the BBC, B7 Media, Big Finish and Almost Tangible. His work in drama has been nominated for several accolades including the BBC Audio Drama Award, New York Radio Award, Vox Award and One Voice Award. As well as voicing over a hundred audiobooks to date, he has voiced hundreds of characters in dozens of video game titles over the past decade, working with London’s biggest production studios. As a stage actor he has trod the boards on some of the UK’s most prestigious stages including The National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, Chichester Festival Theatre and Manchester Royal Exchange.