Writers: David Woods and Jon Haynes
Reviewer: Simon Topping
Looking like characters from the French animation Belleville Rendezvous, two old men and one old woman populate a sparse stage consisting of a table and a couple of chairs. As the characters begin to shuffle around the space, mainly in silence, the audience can already sense that Die, Die, Die, Old People Dieis going to be an unusual spectacle.
Written and performed by indie theatre company Ridiculusmus, it is David Woods’ and Jon Haynes’ intention to create performances that are both serious and funny. Billed as a slow paced farce, there is complete silence at the start as the players dodder around. A couple of nervous laughs begin to squeak out as one character, gloriously played by Woods, attempts to take the correct pills from his pill box, bottom half dressed only in Y-fronts, due to an earlier mishap.
As the show goes on there is more laughter to puncture the silence. A slow-moving sex scene which the audience only begin to realise is happening half way through, is particularly funny, as are a list of condolences read out from Facebook from Woods’ character. There is also a very funny snippet where the action on stage speeds up.
Die, Die, Die is palpably bristling with anger. It is also provocative and both funny and serious. With fine performances and a very uneasy quality, it must be one of the strangest shows in the Fringe, but wonderfully so.
Reviewed on 13 May 2017 at Komedia Studio | Image: Contributed
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Review Overview
The Reviews Hub Score:
Provocative viewing
