REVIEW: GOOD GRIEF at The Hen & Chickens Theatre 18 – 22 March 2025

‘In its best moments, Good Grief offers a compelling exploration of what it is to live with grief.’ ★★ ½ 

Writing about grief is challenging. It is an emotion that often makes us close in on ourselves. As a result, it can be difficult to construct a play about grief that invites the audience in, rather than pushing them away. In its best moments, Good Grief overcomes this difficulty and offers a compelling exploration of what it is to grieve and – more importantly – what it is to grieve in a world that seems to be largely indifferent to your suffering.

The play follows Alex in the months after his wife Alison’s death. We watch as he navigates his grief while also trying to negotiate his relationships – with his best friend, his daughter, his brother, and even with the spectre of his dead wife. Through a series of events – both real and imagined – Alex begins the long process of learning to live with his loss. He even takes some tentative steps towards turning his grief into something good, using it to inform how he interacts with others. 

Writer Matt Adie has written a very funny script that finds ways to make even the most heartbreaking aspects of losing a loved one echo with a poignant humour. On a thematic level, the play offers a well-rounded exploration of grief and resists the urge to have a neat ending: we leave Alex not as a man recovered, but as a man learning to live with a sadness that will never completely leave him. Another highlight of the script is its nimbleness; Adie moves us between scenes swiftly and playfully – for example cutting between a doctor’s appointment and Alex’s recounting of it in an almost filmic fashion. However, the production could have done more to delineate these quick cuts, perhaps through clearer lighting shifts or sharper movement choices.

The cast give strong performances across the board. Danny Swanson (Alex) does well with a hefty part that often swings from heartfelt dialogue to heated diatribe. His performance is especially compelling when he is playing across from Georgina Bennett, who plays Ella. The pair excellently capture the dynamic of a father-daughter duo who are trying their best to find solace in one another. Kudos must also go to Julia Riley, who squeezes as much as she can out of each of her many characters. 

The primary flaw of the play is that it is not able to find a satisfying narrative within which to structure its exploration of grief. We are served not so much a story as a set of vignettes and observations. As a result, the play feels more like a treatise on grief, rather than a story about it. While this approach offers poignant moments, it struggles to sustain the play’s length. During the second half, the play begins to stall as it continues to tread the same ground without offering the audience any sense of journey or evolving stakes. If Alex had been forced to make difficult choices or actively fight to salvage his relationships, the emotional stakes could have been heightened, making his journey more compelling. 

Ultimately, Good Grief made me laugh and think, but only occasionally did it make me feel. When it did, the play’s potential to elicit deep emotion was undeniable. 

Good Grief by Matt Adie / Sense of Place Theatre / The Hen & Chickens Theatre / 18 – 22 March 2025

Images: Simon Wallace, Meltingpot Pictures