Premier of play from the multi-award-winning playwright Georgie Bailey for ChewBoy Productions
‘and every sun we’d walk towards would always be setting, in that beautiful place between the lightness and the dark.’
Two living, breathing people face each other in a theatre space. One is here to help. The other is here for redemption.
These words that’ll linger like ghosts till the day I drop down dead is an experimental comi-tragedy, exploring the actions and words we wish we’d taken and said to those that have now died told through two actors dealing with the grief of a sibling who’s taken their life.
One of the characters is the sister of the boy who’s died, whilst the other is a friend, tasked by the remaining sibling to support her through her grief by engaging in a cathartic exercise of playing out the final weeks of the boy’s life. The interactions they shared together, the words that were said, the conversations never had; opening a web of lies, wishful thinking and, ultimately, the harder side of grieving which tears us apart from the inside out. The two characters are well-matched, constantly shifting in their want to tell this story, and what is morally right in its telling: playing games, sharing jokes and remembering both the good and the bad.
We hurtle through three stages of these characters attempting to work through their grief: The Imagined, which revolves around the depiction of what the remaining sibling wishes she’d said or done to make her brother stay, The Actual, what really happened between them, or so we think, and The Residue, which explores the person now left behind, and how they navigate their way through what’s left.
Says Georgie Bailey, writer of the play; ‘This production is written with personal experience of death at its heart and as its inspiration. Yet it’s both comedic and dark, exploring the struggles many have of talking about grief.’
ChewBoy Productions is an award-winning multi-arts production company specialising in theatre, film, digital and working with new voices. It creates surrealist work which gives its audiences something to chew on long after they’ve experienced it; with each project being unique in utilising the skills of creatives from different backgrounds and specialities.
Praise for ChewBoy Productions:
WINNER Adopt a Playwright Award 2023
LONGLISTED for the Originals Playwriting Award 2022
WINNER Untapped Award 2022 | CALIGARI
WINNER OFFIES (Company Ensemble) 2022 | DJ Bazzer’s Year 6 Disco
WINNER London Pub Theatre Awards (Innovative Play) 2021 | TETHERED
WINNER Best of Brighton Fringe 2019 | EUAN
‘ChewBoy really are at the top of their game’***** Everything Theatre
’Layers of nuance which leave the audience questioning who they are’***** London Theatre 1
**** The Scotsman, ThreeWeeks, SpyInTheStalls, Culture Fix UK, London Theatre Reviews, Theatre News, London Pub Theatres, The Wee Review, Broadway Baby, The Beaver