Life On A Loop – Q Theatre: November 11, 2025 (13th Floor Theatre Review)
Life on a Loop brings theatre icon Ellie Smith back to the local stage for the first time in 17 years with her award-winning solo show, direct from London, throwing us with humour and heart straight into a care home. And if you’re in the right demographic, it zings!
Written by and starring Ellie herself (and only Ellie herself), it’s based on her own experiences singing and entertaining in care homes in the UK. She’s brought all that life experience into these 73 bitter-sweet minutes on stage — the friendships, the loneliness, the humour, the humanity. And Doris Day.
Her own is quite the entrepreneurial story. Seeking voluntary work in semi-retirement, she stumbled upon volunteering in a local care home, realising early on that there is material here for performance in the right hands. She has them.
It’s a homecoming too of course. Friends in the audience keen to celebrate her success. And let’s be fair, it is an aging demographic in attendance. A Roger Hall audience. Everyone here taking notes on their own future.
You can see why the work won awards. It’s tight, and professionally done. Stage and costume (by John Parker) are simple and effective. Cast-off recliners and a wheelchair, haphazardly arranged. A few soft toys. Ellie herself, wearing an easily-recognised caregiver’s smock with a genuine smile. It’s all too frighteningly realistic. Having spent several weeks myself recently visiting a care home to support a dear friend’s demise, the simple set and costume was so convincing I could smell it. The smell of despair. All the better that our first protagonist’s name was Joy.
Each of those seats was a small set in itself, allowing Smith to create a new character, a fresh personality, a different story to tell. Each subtly supported by lighting (by Tony Black) and offstage sounds and voices (by Victor Chaga).
Her characters react to one another, cunningly done with only the one person on stage, or tellingly ignore them all. Several will deliver a small monologue giving some insight into their plight. Each identity change is flawless.
Grace, another aptly-named caregiver, shares her own story, of having to put her own dear husband into care when dementia overtook him after too many visits from retired American presidents. She shares the heartache at slowly losing her loved one, and the overwhelming guilt at having given up on him. Her guilt brings a rustle of empathy from the audience.
The ‘loop’ portrayed here is our life’s cycle from birth to ageing — ‘from one childhood to another’—told through the cycle of one institutional day, from awakening to sleep. It’s a Christmas day, this one, barely different however from any other day apart from the party hats. The only thing any of them have to look forward to is the Queen’s Speech. (“And I haven’t the heart to tell them,” confides Grace, “that she’s no longer with us.”)
There’s no easy sentiment here, but plenty of that humour. It’s often ribald, and dark. Because despite the grace, and the generosity in the writing, these are not characters full of joy. They are not going gentle into that good night, but sliding into it with ennui, irritation, and even anger. Even the (few) visitors share it.
There’s no religiosity, as one might expect as the end draws near. It’s not the next Mass they’re looking forward to but their next bowel movement. It’s about the body, not the spirit. Humanity not religion. The only rituals here are the pills, the BM, the afternoon tea and cake, a nappy change before lunch, and eating dinner without having it end up in your lap. Horizons shrink.
It all rang true. One can understand Grace’s sentiment, wishing everyone an endless sky!
I was reminded of Jo Brand’s take on nursing in the TV series Getting On, but Smith’s care-givers are warmer, more engaging. At 73 minutes however I did feel myself begin to yearn myself for that endless open sky.
THEATRE PETER
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More info here.
Interview with Ellie Smith here.
Tickets here.
