Birmingham based writer/actor, Darren Haywood, promises ‘this will not be the Marilyn you’ve seen before’, premiering his new production at the Great Hampton Street theatre with the Taking Chances theatre group.
Previously penning shows including Role Play, Head Girl and The Morning After – all produced by Taking Chances – Heywood has not shied away from the more subversive issues, even playing the title role in Taking Chances‘ production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at the Crescent Theatre back in 2011.
Monroe, arguably one of the world’s favourite film stars, died at just 36: her shock death combined with her high octane life (rumoured to include an affair with John F Kennedy) immortalised her celebrity, as well as creating a wealth of conspiracy theories. But despite the decades since her death in 1962 Monroe’s allure has persisted, even assisted by the mystery surrounding her premature demise.
The Late Marilyn Monroe presents the star’s final day, and an audience familiar only with Monroe’s glamorous persona may be surprised by the ‘reality’. Indeed the show’s promotion asks us ‘what really happened? And what was she like behind closed doors?’ But Haywood’s script seems certain to explore Monroe’s apparent battles with drug addiction, depression, and sexual exploitation, issues particularly pertinent in the climate of Hollywood’s #MeToo campaign.
And with such a well loved icon as the centre piece of the narrative, it will be interesting to see what fresh insight and modern meaning both Haywood and Taking Chances can bring to such a familiar tale.
It’s probably just red car syndrome, but as I make my way to see The Death Show at Birmingham REP I find myself stuck in traffic and staring at a poster for The Maze Runner – Death Cure, before rolling adverts remind me that at dog tracks across the country ‘you bet, they die’. I squash two snails when I get off the bus.
I eventually arrive at the theatre (after taking my life in my hands traversing the Paradise Forum road works) and run into a friend who is taking her daughter to see Coco – Pixar’s latest big screen animation about the Mexican Day of the Dead festival. The closing words to last night’s Monty Python film continue to circle around the back of my head, as my friend’s daughter tells me about the “magical adventure of a boy who learns to be a musician from his dead ancestors,” a context she seems quite at peace with. My friend’s husband, a vicar, is busy with a funeral. Fate is laughing and apparently leading today; religion is missing in many corners of this theatre.
The Death Show is the culmination of years of research from ‘theatre makers’ and self confessed ‘thanatophobes’ Lucy Nicholls and Antonia Beck, after the duo turned their curiously macabre small talk into an original stage production. It’s a huge subject without an end, both literally and figuratively, and the challenge to anyone tackling this topic is the seesaw of content and context.
But this is theatre, and on entering The Door we are greeted by Nicholls and Beck dressed head to toe in respectful black – handing out tissues because “things can get a little sad and teary.” Centre stage there is a full sized coffin, with a coffin shaped ‘doorway’ stood upright and stage left. An order of service is handed to each audience member, with funeral favourite ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ playing through the house speakers as we take our seats. The Death Show is clearly a show about death. And, just as clearly, there is no escape from it.
The premise is a funeral to our hosts and the dearly departed, who refer to themselves in the third person, mourning “the death of Lucy and Antonia”. After a short hat picked declaration of what sent the pair to their graves (which if it isn’t set up, may indeed prove the existence of a divine being) we kick of as every funeral should, with legacy. Or the purported achievements that can more serve to make sense of a life, rather than accept the loss of one. And whilst matinee crowds are not the easiest to make laugh, by the time we are watching the superimposed faces of Nicholls and Beck on the Kardashian babies the healthy (no pun intended) afternoon audience is in comfortable good humour.
But the mood turns, as we become voyeurs to the emotions that compelled Nicholls and Beck to write The Death Show in the first place. Namely, the organ failing fear that there is nothing but void. Following their initial meeting, a careful balance of abject horror and camaraderie, Nicholls and Beck embark on a creative challenge to bring ‘death out of the shadows’ – researching their subject with hands on experiences, which in turn make up the segments of The Death Show.
The first step on their Arts Council funded path to enlightenment is with a pair of “angry” Australians, who seem intent to “excrete death” whilst enjoying “a good work out” and some loosened hamstrings. Perverse, but I can believe it’s happening somewhere. Next up is the equally obnoxious and “more feminine” spiritual self help group, where Nicholls and Beck are encouraged to “breath in through your lady mouths” before affecting the faux shamanic monikers you’d hear on a marketing department team training day. Or in Moseley.
Whilst the rib dig at Down Under gets a little farcical, and arguably a touch… achem, both group experiences are an engaging mirror to the absurdity that can surround ‘those that know’. Spirituality, for want of a better word, is often a blank cheque for idiots to enlist more idiots in an exercise of group narcissism; Nicholls and Beck respond with parody and a sharp exit, as their journey continues. Answer my question about Descartes or just fucking hug me please.
Then it’s onto the more serious endeavour of preparing a body – a duty Nicholls and Beck performed whilst shadowing an undertaker as part of their research. Mental note: when a funeral director asks for some clothes for your loved one to be dressed in, don’t forget the underwear. Finally, we walk though the somewhat failed attempt to engage with terminally ill patients at a hospice; a brutally important avenue of exploration, but one Nicholls and Beck candidly recognise didn’t go as they would have hoped – playfully and painfully displaying the chasm of this contact.
We wrap The Death Show to further honestly, namely that “we don’t have the answers… but we do have this rather wonderful dance” – as Nicholls and Beck display what makes their lives worth living, and in turn encourage us to say “cheers to the little things”. It’s a poignant summary, but one the writing and presentation have stayed true to across the narrative; an audience are not going to find the answers to life, death and everything at 2:30pm on a Saturday afternoon, just as the scriptwriters didn’t after years of research.
The point, I guess, is to be together whilst we work out what to do in the absence of any answers at all – and this is certainly where art can help us. Or, as The Death Show press release states, ‘to laugh, cry, stick two fingers up at the grim reaper and discover why talking about death is ultimately life affirming.’
Whilst some of us scream at the bottom of a bottle of bourbon, Nicholls and Beck took the challenge of turning their own self reflection into something to share – resulting in comedy, self deprecation, biological facts, and a Breakfast Club fist pump in the face of fear. The Death Show is a competent contribution to the bottomless pit conversation about our own mortality, delivered through a beautifully balanced story of hope, humour and fear. Plus it stands ram rod straight in the face of questions that can break a person in two – something, if nothing else, an audience member can take from this production that will hopefully help them with every day until their last.
Death terrifies me, to the point that I am obsessed with trying to unravel it, and I have long suspected that there is no amount of time, money or research that will bring about a collective understanding. ‘Like a room of blind people trying to explain the colour blue to each other’, is the line I land on. So, what am I doing on a Saturday afternoon in a room full of strangers? What are any of us doing here? Because what else can you do, especially when the sour mash has all dried up and there are no vocal chords left to tug.
The Death Show is also, quite simply, an extremely funny play. And if Christ, Brahma, Moses and whatever clandestine lizards there may be in The White House can’t give us any definitive proof, then that’s probably all we’ve got. Well, either that or insanity. Or song. Or even a little of all three, after all you know what they say. Some things in life are bad…
The Death Show
The Death Show tours across February, with dates in Leeds, London and Bristol – as presented by Outer Circle Arts. For direct event info, including full tour details and links to online ticket sales, visit www.thedeathshow.co.uk
For more from the Birmingham REP, including full production listings and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk
Ed Byrne has been a comedian for around 20 years now, pretty much his entire adult life. He’s had hit tours, DVDs and has sold out numerous runs at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Byrne has also established a successful TV career, not just through his numerous appearances on comedy shows such as Mock the Week, Have I Got News for You and Live at the Apollo, but also in factual genres. Indeed, Byrne seems to have reached the enviable position of being able to create TV series about subjects he’s personally interested in, such as Dara & Ed’s Great Big Adventure in Central America and its successor Road to Mandalay – road trips that feature friend and fellow comedian, Dara Ó Briain.
Byrne is undoubtedly in comedy’s Premier League, with publications like the Sunday Times declaring that his work ‘could stand proudly next to any Izzard, Bailey, Carr or Skinner stadium-filler’. He certainly tends to mine similar ground to these comedians, though arguably without the quirks that make their voices truly unique.
Spoiler Alert was debuted and developed at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, as Byrne traces his shift from a working class young Dubliner to a middle class countryside-dweller. He looks at the impact this change has had on his children’s upbringing compared to his own, and asks the audience “are we right to be fed up, or are we spoiled?”
It may sound like common territory for a mainstream comedian’s set, but with Byrne‘s effortless, laid back delivery (and those 20 years of comedy experience) he’s sure to bring an easy charm to a well-considered and fun evening of genial entertainment.
Ed Byrne on weddings – Live at the Apollo
Ed Byrne brings his Spoiler Alert show to Town Hall on Saturday 27th January. For direct show information, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.thsh.co.uk/event/ed-byrne-spoiler-alert
*The Fern Brady Suffer, Fools! show on 29th January has been rescheduled from its original date of 26th January. For more information on refunds or issues relating to the rescheduling, please contact The Glee Club box office on 0871 472 0400*
Fern Brady is quickly building momentum as one of the UK’s most promising up-and-coming comedians.
If an appearance on Stewart Lee’s Comedy Central show TheAlternative Comedy Experience was an early badge of quality, this has been backed up with approving reviews and high profile appearances on Russell Howard’s Stand Up Central and Channel Four’s 8 Out of 10 Cats. Brady starts 2018 embarking on a long UK tour, followed by a string of dates at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, before another series of dates back in the UK.
Brady reportedly first tried stand-up comedy after the magazine she wrote for during the Edinburgh Fringe suggested she write an article where she faked it as a comedian. What the magazine didn’t know was that Brady secretly wanted to try stand-up comedy anyway, so took the gig much more seriously than was strictly needed. She hasn’t looked back, eventually making the final of the Fringe’s prestigious award for stand-up newcomers, So You Think You’re Funny, in 2011.
Just don’t label her a ‘Scottish’ comedian. Brady is uncomfortable being a talking head on issues of Scottish independence and is reportedly unimpressed with the English’s preoccupation with her nationality. But perhaps (after watching several YouTube snippets) some of the problem with the later lies in the fact that Brady‘s fairly broad accent (to my English ears, anyway) bolsters her no-nonsense delivery. And God bless this green and pleasant land, but an English accent just doesn’t have the same clout.
But of course, there’s much more to Fern Bady than being Scottish. Her autobiographical material (she claims to be terrible at making things up, so everything she talks about on stage is true) is self-assured, knowing and easy to relate to. This is a great chance to see a comedian on the up, in a relatively intimate venue. I’d get in quick, before she’s packing out arenas.
Fern Brady on Seann Walsh’s Late Night Comedy Spectacular
Fern Brady brings her Suffer, Fools! tour to The Glee Club (B’ham) on Monday 29th January – rescheduled from 26th January. For direct gig info, including venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.glee.co.uk/performer/fern-brady-tour
Tickets are priced at £14, with each evening performance scheduled for 8pm. There is a further matinee performance of The Death Show at 2:30pm on Saturday 27th January, with a 30min panel discussion held after the performance with members of BrumYODO – ‘a community collective aiming to encourage open and honest conversations about death and dying.’
Created by Birmingham based ‘thanatophobes’ (Google it) and independent theatre makers, Lucy Nicholls and Antonia Beck, The Death Show ‘is a darkly comic journey of discovery and contemplation, exploring our universal relationships with death and dying’.
An original new production tackling the oldest subject known to humanity (…perhaps the second oldest, after sex) the creative duo spent time at local hospices – talking to both patients and practitioners, shadowing undertakers and training with celebrants. Coming ‘face to face’ with the subject of death, Nicholls and Beck then penned The Death Show – a stage play, written for two protagonists as they encourage an audience ‘to celebrate their own mortality. To laugh, cry, stick two fingers up at the grim reaper and discover why talking about death is ultimately life affirming.’
For a man who thinks about death all, the, freaking, time, this is a welcome addition to a conversation that is seldom had, yet seldom more important to have. After all, in the words of another curly haired obnoxious drunk, ‘no one here gets out alive’. And a bit of constructive criticism of how society can hide, especially from the inevitable, is rarely a bad thing.
However my fear (other than the Christian right controlling the afterlife) is that we get distracted by funerals. Death and the ceremony of remembering the dead are, to me, separate issues – both ones that need confidently addressing in modern times, but separate none the less. Telling people I want to be buried under a plum tree will not save my soul.
In 2018 – the year of whatever lord or secular crutch you so choose to cling to – we live in an age of tacit denial, sure, but also with the most advanced resources and references in recorded history. With the World Wide Web, never before has the human species been able to share stories and information with such a wide and easy reach.
Studies have been conducted across the globe into cardiac arrest, near death experiences and the transition of ‘alive’ to ‘dead’ – as we currently call the two states of being. Indeed, Dr Sam Parnia was the lead author on the AWARE study at the University of Southampton, which ran from 2008 to 2014 and ‘examined the broad range of mental experiences in relation to death’ from over 2000 patients in the UK, US and Austria. Every British tabloid has published stories on near death experiences, scientifically researched or otherwise, so every British tabloid reader is aware of the discussion. There’s even a Wikipedia entry on the ‘Afterlife’.
But art can so often be a healthier catalyst to conversation, especially when we try to address/understand the darker fringes or ‘taboo’ subjects of the human endevour. It allows us to take a more detached delve into frightening waters, with the hope of finding answers and perhaps even solace. And as questions go, it doesn’t get more visceral than ‘what happens when you die?’
How long was that panel discussion again…?
The Death Show
The Death Show runs at the Birmingham REP (The Door) from 26th to 27th January – as presented by Outer Circle Arts. For direct event info, including full programme times, venue details and online ticket sales, visit www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/whats-on/the-death-show
Words by Charlotte Heap
She hasn’t looked back, eventually making the final of the Fringe’s prestigious award for stand-up newcomers, So You Think You’re Funny, in 2011.