Using just his voice and a Roland TD-4KP electronic drumkit, award-winning poet Antosh Wojcik explores the effects of dementia on speech, memory and family in his debut work for theatre, How to Keep Time.

Subtitled A Drum Solo for Dementia, the 60-minute show is a mesmeric display of drumming and spoken word in which poems become beats and beats become glitches in time. Reading-born Antosh, 26, tells the moving story of his Polish grandfather's struggle against Alzheimer's and the effect it had on the people around him. "I want to de-stigmatise dementia and give it a human voice," he says. "By combining spoken word with music I want to unlock some critical questions about memory and language. What happens when memories disappear? Where do they go and can we get them back? Can I use my drums to communicate with my grandfather?"

Antosh Wojcik is a poet, performer, writer, facilitator. He is a Resident Artist at The Roundhouse and is a member of London-based poetry collectives, Kid Glove and Burn After Reading. He was joint champion of the Roundhouse Poetry Slam 2013. He has performed at many events around the UK, including TEDx East End 2015 and festivals such as Glastonbury, Latitude and Bestival, as well as internationally at Sofia Poetics 2015. He was part of The Last Poets' Speak Up Newcomer Tour 2015, in which he was commissioned with three other poets to write and perform a collaborative piece responding to 'This Is Madness.' He leads writing workshops in schools and other contexts for all ages. 

How to Keep Time will be presented at Summerhall as part of their 2018 Fringe programme, with previews starting 1^st August. Early versions have been performed at Camden People's Theatre, Shoreditch Town Hall, Roundhouse and Verve Poetry Festival. Verve's co-director Stuart Bartholomew dubbed the show "moving, entertaining and uplifting", while Maria Parsons of the Creative Dementia Arts Network has praised Antosh's "terrific use of drumming as a bridge for language in dementia". Producer Tom Chivers of literary arts company Penned in the Margins says, "I am delighted to be showcasing a fresh, exciting spoken word talent in Antosh Wojcik at a venue rightly celebrated for supporting experimental performance and generating dialogue between medical science and the performing arts."