Is Alzheimer's the new Holocaust? Ricky Gervais famously told Kate Winslet, after she won her Oscar for The Reader: "Didn't I tell you? Do a Holocaust movie and the awards will come."

Well, the same might now be said of the brain disease that has featured in Oscar-winning movies such as Iris, about Iris Murdoch played by Judi Dench, and Still Alice, starring Julianne Moore.

And now there is also Kenneth Cranham who will also be up for big theatre gongs.

In Florian Zeller's fiendishly clever play, Cranham plays Alzheimer's sufferer André, charismatic father to Claire Skinner's Anne, who is forced to make the transition from daughter to carer.

If that all sounds depressingly off-putting, please don't let it put you off. For while this Paris-set play packs the required emotional punch for a drama about a dissolving mind, it does so with quite exhilarating flare and humour.

The key lies in the way Zeller has constructed his piece, which is set in an apartment that may be Andre's, or Anne's, or somewhere else. The scenes - often short and punchy - are offered up like segments of a puzzle. Giving too much away here would solve it prematurely.

But the crucial effect is that they disorientate the audience, allowing a rare insight into what it is like to be an Alzheimer's sufferer such as André. And on that level, James Macdonald's production, which between the scenes cleverly uses broken passages of music as a metaphor for memory loss, reveals that the seemingly erratic behaviour of those who are losing their short-term memory is in fact a most rational response to the confusion they experience.

There may be a nagging reservation here about whether the inevitable depiction of an Alzheimer's sufferer as an emotional loose cannon is in fact low-hanging fruit for any decent actor, much like the Holocaust can be. But Cranham is in total command as he transmits the fear, frustration and incredulity of a once-confident man who can no longer trust his mind's interpretation of the world.

Skinner, meanwhile, is also terrific as her Anne moves from loyal determination to world-weary resignation. Ultimately, however, the star is the play which has you piecing it together like the story equivalent of a Rubik's Cube.

Who knows, it might just be the kind of mental exercise that helps stave off Alzheimer's.