Homage to Julie

Aside

Julie Walters is one of my favourite actresses. I can’t think of any other who can move me to tears as well as make me hysterical with laughter. She is totally devoid of vanity and ‘luvvie -ness.’ Just one example of her unique comic brilliance is the sketch ‘Two Soups’ which I hope I can successfully embed – but if not there are many examples on You tube. The PC brigade may think it is mocking the old but the older I get – the funnier I find it.

There are many examples of her ability to capture the essence of a character and engage the emotions of the audience – the latest of which was her portrayal, the other night on TV, in ‘A Short Stay in Switzerland’; a true story of a doctor stricken with an illness –Progressive Supranuclear Palsy that would render her completely helpless, and this after she had cared for her husband until his death, from a similar disease. She describes it as ‘a bomb going off in my body – slowly but surely,’ and decides to go to a clinic in Zurich, for an assisted suicide, whilst she still has the strength to get there.

She tries to convince her three grown –up children that this is what she must do but they protest vehemently and help her to move from her large, beautiful house into a tiny bungalow. In despair at her increasing helplessness, she attempts suicide, crushing many tablets in orange juice and gin, drinking it and putting a plastic bag over her face, but her children – alerted by no answer to their telephone calls - rush round and save her.

Slowly they each come round to agreeing to accompany her to Switzerland so that she can die with dignity. Her best friend will not accept that she is choosing a ‘good death’ as opposed to a ‘bad death’ and calls her selfish, cruel and stupid, and their friendship ends.

In the clinic she has to declare her condition and that she is completely determined to end her life and does this without the children present. After the children rejoin her, she is given the fatal dose, which is bitter, drinks it unflinchingly, is helped onto the bed where she dies in the arms of the children.

The play leaves lots of questions and no real answers. Which is the more selfish: to deprive your children of their mother, or save them from having the responsibility of care, whilst you slowly become totally helpless like their father did, but to a more severe degree. I hope I never have to face the dilemma.

PS I got Two Soups on my edit posts but it won’t transfer. You can see it on You Tube normally – not just now.