When Hannah Moss’s dad died she didn’t want to talk about it.

In So It Goes she is reconnecting with her father, without having to try to put it into speech – instead using a rewriteable whiteboard or placards to tell his story.

And this is where the performance is so effective. By stripping everything down to caption-length, she has created a simple but extremely effective memorial of her father’s life, as well as an investigation of her own grief.

The story jumps forward and backward in time, incorporating memories of her father, the agony of his diagnosis and the aftermath of his untimely death when Moss was only 17.

Her approach is unflinching – Moss’s depiction of her mother’s lonely life, and her father’s initial attempts to solve his terminal diagnosis are particularly poignant.

But the show is also celebratory in capturing aspects of his character, from his favourite place to his love of Shania Twain.

Moss and co-star David Ralfe give great physical performances, using running on the spot and facial expressions to express both great joy and grief.

The only frustrations come when the captions are held below waist height and so dip out of sight behind the front row. It leads to a lot of awkward audience shuffling at the back and whispered reading to neighbours, losing a little of the magic.

Four stars