REVIEW: Glad to Be Dead at The Hen and Chickens Theatre 31 July – 3 August 2023

‘A fun play with engaging performances but could do with more flesh on its bones’★★★ ½ 

It’s a scary thought that those of us alive today are dwarfed in number by those who have lived and died before us. It’s an interest in what these people, and their artistic creations, would have to say about our world that powers GLAD TO BE DEAD, a show aiming to give voice to some famous and not so famous figures from the past through a series of monologues, letting these spirits comment on the modern day or simply tell the story that they never got to tell in life.

Dorian Gray skewers selfie culture while Jekyll and Hyde wax philosophical over modern psychology. On the more serious side a victim of a witch hunt shares her sad tale of an unstable life and the eventual ostracisation that lead to her execution, and the night’s highlight was easily a monologue performed by Jade Flack, centering on the tragic real life cold case of Reyna Angélica Marroquín. Flack paid a wonderful tribute to her memory by telling the heart-breaking story behind her murder in an absorbing tone that captured the exact dramatic heights you’d hope for given the premise. If all segments were as good, this would be a stellar show.

Unfortunately, while all pieces and performances were solid, overall, the play feels aimless. Things never really get bogged down, but neither do they come together as the monologues all exist as entirely separate entities. There is some attempt made to detail the strange setting that is enabling these figures to speak to us, but it doesn’t come to anything by the end. A final note that bears mentioning is the Irish accent used for one of the monologues, of the Hollywood variety that no Irish person has ever actually possessed. It hobbled that particular piece, and more practice or a change in the accent used would improve things.

Ultimately this is a fun play with engaging performances but could do with more flesh on its bones.

Glad To Be Dead showed in The Hen and Chickens 31st July – 3rd August 2023

Written by Donna Flack

Starring Jade Flack, Bruce Murray and Barbara Llewellyn

Produced by Make It Mine Theatre

Reviewed by Harry Conway