How a tragic death inspired a wild and strange comedy show

3 months ago 7

Grief is an unexpected subject for an acclaimed performing duo who have built careers around edgy comedy, music and politics.

But the sudden death two years ago of English playwright and theatre director Adam Brace left his partner Rebecca Biscuit and her collaborator Louise Mothersole finding that the only way back from the darkness of bereavement was to write a show about it.

Or What’s Left Of Us in London’s Soho Theatre late last year.

For Biscuit, who performs with Mothersole in Sh!t Theatre, Brace’s death at just 43 from complications of a stroke left everything feeling meaningless.

“You lose everything else,” she says on a Zoom call from London. “I lost all fear. I used to be scared of flying, I’m no longer scared of flying.

“I lost all ambition. I didn’t care about Sh!t Theatre. The fact that he’s not here and he’s not living the life he should be living is devastatingly painful.”

Biscuit says Brace was always “really, really happy” when his acts, which included Sh!t Theatre, did well.

Evana De Lune performs at the launch of the Sydney Fringe Festival at Eternity Playhouse. Her show Burlesque With Evana De Lune is at Fool’s Paradise in the Entertainment Quarter from September 16-21.

“One of his acts this year at the Edinburgh Fringe was nominated for the best comedy award,” she says. “The first thing you want to do is call Adam and hear how happy he would have been. That’s still very present.”

Over time, Biscuit and Mothersole found consolation visiting English folk clubs where they could join in “singarounds” – taking turns singing a song – without the pressure of performing.

“It was so joyful,” Biscuit says. “There was one time Louise literally burst into tears because she was so happy; the joy and the pain went hand in hand.

Head First Acrobats perform at the Fringe launch. Their show, Elixir Revived, is at Fool’s Paradise in the Entertainment Quarter until October 11.

“We went to one very famous folk club in Leeds, where Louise lives, and a week later someone firebombed it. The idea someone would have a grudge against a folk club so big that they would firebomb it was pretty funny to us.”

The show that grew out of their grief and that folk club visit, poignantly called Sh!t Theatre: Or What’s Left of Us, is opening at the Sydney Fringe then Melbourne Fringe festivals after success in the UK. It sounds like a wild ride.

In a review describing the show as “playful and starkly profound”, The Guardian newspaper said it included “brisk humour, boozy bonhomie and gorgeous harmonies” as well as painted faces, strange headgear, stories about the firebombed folk club and a mushroom binge at a music festival, then an optional post-show singaround with the audience in a nearby bar.

Mothersole says from Leeds – it’s early so she’s still in bed – that the show allowed them keep talking about their grief “beyond the point where it’s socially acceptable”. And the post-show singing let audience members share their own experiences of grief.

The Ghana Road Show performs at the launch. Their show is at Eternity Playhouse from September 2-6.

So what do people sing when they get to the bar?

“It could be pop or rock,” Mothersole says. “It could be anything.”

The duo, who have been performing together since they met at university in East London, have been winning awards for shows on subjects as different as spending a year selling their bodies for medical science (Guinea Pigs on Trial), Dolly Parton, Dolly the sheep and mortality (DollyWould) and British expat culture and crime in Malta (Drink Rum with Expats).

Sydney Fringe, which runs until September 30, includes 460 events featuring 3000 artists in more than 80 venues as widespread as Parramatta, Fairfield, Lane Cove, Bondi Beach and Hurstville.

Chief executive Patrick Kennedy, who launched the festival at the reopened Eternity Playhouse in Darlinghurst on Tuesday, says it returned $5.5 million to independent and emerging artists and arts workers from about $9 million in revenue last year.

With tickets as cheap as $10 – averaging $22 – he sees it as a chance for audiences to discover new talent.

“We actually don’t know what nearly all of those 460 shows are going to be because they’re being created right now,” Kennedy says. “That’s the exciting part of the Fringe Festival – it’s a bit of a risk, a bit of an unknown.”

As well as existing venues, the festival uses new performance spaces including a terrace house in The Rocks, Hurstville Plaza, Manly Dam and two circus domes, called Fool’s Paradise, at Moore Park.

“Anybody who wants to put on a show can,” Kennedy says. “What the Fringe does is support local voices in local places.”

Among the highlights are The Ghana Road Show, musicians and performers celebrating West African culture, Head First Acrobats’ circus comedy Elixir Revived, and burlesque performer Evana De Lune.

Sh!t Theatre: Or What’s Left of Us is at the New Theatre, Newtown, during Sydney Fringe from September 17-27 and at Trades Hall, Carlton, during Melbourne Fringe from October 1-4.

Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.