Reviews are in for Theatre Re’s The Nature of Forgetting, which played a single performance at the Hackney Empire on 8 October as part of the company’s tenth anniversary tour. The piece, conceived and directed by Guillaume Pigé, follows Tom, a man living with young onset dementia, through the memories that come back to him as he dresses for his 55th birthday, told almost entirely without words through movement and live music. The critics are unusually united: they praise the precision of the four performers and the live score by Alex Judd, and the few reservations concern spoken lines that do not always carry and the balance between comedy and loss.
The verdict: seven reviews in so far, and every one of them rates it: three five-star notices, one at four and a half and three at four stars, for an average of 4.5 out of 5. The critics agree on the physical precision of the four-strong company, led by Guillaume Pigé as Tom, and on the live score; the reservations are small ones about audibility and pace.
What are critics saying about The Nature of Forgetting?
Everything Theatre
"Compelling and powerful exploration of a life fracturing with dementia"
Reviewer: Clare Runacres
Runacres describes an almost wordless evening of dance and mime driven by a live band, with the company pulling clothes on and off a rail to become the people in Tom’s life. She singles out the teenage bike ride and Alex Judd’s score.
"This show is a brilliant piece of inventive, genre-bending theatre, balanced and timed to perfection…"
Her verdict is that the piece manages to be energetic and exhilarating while staying wistful and deeply moving, and she is not surprised it still sells out venues ten years on.
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Jasmine
Jasmine credits Judd’s music and Katherine Graham’s lighting with taking the audience inside Tom’s head, from bass notes felt in the chest to sudden, empty silences.
"…in the moments where the music, the lighting, the movement are all at their height, it is unforgettable theatre."
She also praises the ensemble’s world-building, and values a production that stays centred on love and relationships, which makes it feel life-affirming rather than bleak.
A Young(ish) Perspective
"A wordless, explosive and deeply tender portrait of a mind losing its grip on the past."
Reviewer: Lauren Aitken
Aitken calls Guillaume Pigé, who also conceived and directs the piece, superb as Tom, using his body with a dancer’s precision. She picks out percussionist Nathan Gregory, a bike that never moves yet seems to fly, and a wedding that freezes on the kiss.
"Yet what lingers is not what Tom loses but what stays with him…"
The final scene, with clothes flung from the racks until only hangers remain, she finds chaotic and heartbreaking.
Read Lauren Aitken’s full review at A Young(ish) Perspective
The Reviews Hub
"Exceptionally executed and accomplished"
Reviewer: Harry Conway
Conway saw the single performance to a packed Hackney Empire and found it as joyful as it is stirring. He says the ensemble of Pigé, Luna Tosin, Claudia Marciano and Calum Littley match professional dancers, and rates Graham’s lighting among the most intense of the year.
"Theatre, and in particular physical theatre, rarely gets as good as this."
His only reservation is that the lighter material occasionally outweighs the tragedy; otherwise he urges anyone near the tour to catch it.
The Spy in the Stalls
"deeply moving and beautifully observed"
Reviewer: Hannah Bothelton
Bothelton admires the synchronised precision of the four performers and a scene in which Tom’s earliest memories of his daughter are represented by a chair.
"Fusing astonishingly precise movement with deeply human storytelling, this acclaimed production approaches its subject with compassion and remarkable honesty."
She notes that some spoken lines are lost without amplification and that a few pauses linger, but calls it an overwhelmingly compelling piece of theatre.
Read Hannah Bothelton’s full review at The Spy in the Stalls
Operation Live Theatre
Reviewer: Xi Ye
Xi Ye reads the muffled snatches of dialogue as conversations inside Tom’s head, and finds the show’s power in ordinary memories: school, friends, a wedding where the ring goes missing.
"…it looks past the disease itself and focuses on the main character as an individual…"
The review stresses that the choreography and music avoid both sorrow and pity, leaving an evening that feels calm and full of life.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (Dave Fargnoli, four stars, "Wholly engrossing"), whose review sits behind a registration wall.
The London date was part of the Hackney Empire’s 125th anniversary season. For more of this week’s reviews, see what the critics made of The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940 at the Arcola Theatre and Fences at the Lyric Hammersmith.
The Nature of Forgetting played one night in London, at the Hackney Empire on 8 October 2026. Theatre Re’s UK tour continues at the Jersey Opera House (13-15 October 2026), Curve in Leicester (9-10 November 2026), BEAM in Hertford (11-12 November 2026), the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (11-12 February 2027), Leeds Playhouse (24-25 February 2027) and Storyhouse in Chester (3-4 March 2027).
