Writers: Daniel Kettle and Sebastian Gardner
Director: Marysa Finnie
A zombie stage show is an ambitious undertaking – the need to combine stunts, physical transformations and plenty of gore makes this a challenging concept to manage successfully. For Daniel Kettle and Sebastian Gardner’s Steve and Tobias Versus Death devised in collaboration with Superglue Assembly Line, the trappings of the zombie apocalypse story actually come easily with some energetic stunts that generate the frenzy of attacks while make-up artists Julia Bird and Ami Okumura Jones who create blood-splattered bodies, guts and suppurating wounds more than do the job in the confines of the smaller Pleasance Theatre space. But the story struggles to find purpose.
Brothers Steve and Tobias are worried about their mother’s advancing illness and absent father, but when she unexpectedly escapes from her room it unleashes carnage in their household. As a series of visitors cross their threshold seeking shelter, the dangers of the outside world come with them. Can the brothers stay alive and what role will mashed potato play in their plan?
Kettle and Gardner’s comic piece was originally scheduled for the Vault Festival and has been given a new home by the Pleasance in London. Running at around 50 minutes, the central story is built around the brothers – one aged 9, the other presumably in his mid-teens – and their spikey relationship. Much of the story involves their domestic bickering, making this a domestic zombie tale set entirely in a single room in which the absence of a father and male role model is repeatedly referenced.
Tonally, however, it lacks the siege mentality and atmosphere that could have created greater tension and while this does get suitably anarchic, the quieter moments between the waves of attack need some work. The semi-resentful relationship between two boys at different stages is a good concept which results in some nicely timed one-liners, but the comic sparks are not quite enough to sustain the show in its periods of quiet, offering neither character development or any real reflection on what is happening outside and why.
This is a zombie play that never mentions the z-word, although it’s never clear why. It feels purposeful, perhaps because the boys prefer to remember their attackers as the people they were, but that is never fully explored. Towards the end, the show starts to lag for lack of direction and a future iteration may need some space to reflect on overall point of the story – is it making statements about societies under pressure, about dealing with easily spread diseases, expectations of masculinity pushed on boys from a young age, or do Kettle and Gardner just want escapism and a few gory laughs?
The stunts are, though very well done, with the energy of the zombie attacks becoming increasingly violent with plenty of punches, leaps over furniture, tumbles and blood packs exploding at fast pace in a small studio space. Anyone in the front row of this two-row theatre may squirm at just how physical the finale becomes as Steve (Gardner) and Tobias (Kettle) are pursued by all the characters played by Margherita Deri, Okumura Jones, Harris Allen and Marysa Finnie. There are certainly plenty of guts on display in this well managed production, but it just needs that extra bit of purpose to match the story to the action.
Runs until 19 March 2022
