'Buying last ironing board' prompts deeper thoughts about mortality and ageing: Brian Daniels

When you get over a certain age, the first topic of conversation is what medications you are on.

It seems everyone has a health issue be it arthritis, hearing loss or diabetes and what you can physically do, hear and eat becomes of great importance.

One of my plays, ‘100 Not Out’ was performed in Sheffield recently. It’s about a circus performer who is befriended by a gender-fluid student and initially, it s about not judging a book by its cover. It made me think about the things that change as you get older.

The play was commissioned by Sheffield Hallam University’s ‘Lab 4 Living’, a collaborative community of researchers across design, healthcare and creative practices who work together to address real-world issues that impact health and wellbeing.

The play embodies themes from a research project ‘The 100-year Life’ led by Professor Claire Craig.

The interdisciplinary research group focuses on commercial products, services and interventions that support dignity and human flourishing across all of life. They consider user-friendly designs that facilitate ageing rather than make life harder.

Most cartons of milk need a certain level of dexterity to open, as do dresses with zip- up backs (even young, flexible people sometimes struggle). Mobile phones need to be the right size and shape to be held.

I could list hundreds of things. I’m sure you can too.

Declining mortality rates mean higher life expectancies globally so between 2000 and 2050 the number of people aged over 65 in the UK is anticipated to double. That is a lot of people that these products, services and interventions are not accommodating.

Independent living is what everyone strives for as it can ease the passage of ageing if you put off going into a formal care setting for as long as possible.

I must say though that some organisations get it right. My wife needs Passenger Assist and when we fly Jet2, they support us both from the moment we enter the airport to the moment we leave the other end. (I suspect these companies are shrewd enough to realise that their customers with the most disposable incomes are the ones often in their 60s and 70s.)

I’m creating a podcast of the play I wrote for Sheffield Hallam so that it can reach a wider audience. Under my company, Pluto Play Productions, I write many plays to raise awareness of the issues that we face as we age to encourage conversations around dementia, life-limiting illness and bereavement.

As well as being entertainin g , all my plays are educational and p erform an ces are usually followed with a discussion by an i nvited panel of guests plus a Q& A with the audience which is an integral part of each eve nt. The discussion after ‘100 Not Out’ was fascinating.

Buying your last ironing board might seem like a triviality of life but if that ironing board isn’t easy to open, stand up and use the n de sig n-wi se we ar e faili ng a huge and growing s e ction of society.

Brian Daniels is an award-winning playwright