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This show about the fear of dying is utterly charming throughout, just slightly disjointed in its current form.Summary
Rating
Good
“Has anybody else thought about the day they are going to die?” It’s certainly a catchy opening line and delivered with such innocence that it’s impossible not to fall for Martia Dimmer’s debut play, Any Day Now. It’s also asked with such sincerity you almost feel a need to answer. And thus begins Dimmer’s whistle-stop tour of her fear of dying and the unusual steps she takes to confront it.
We’re whisked along as Dimmer jumps from scene to scene, person to person, confidently assuming each role, taking us deeper into her psyche. There’s hardly a dud scene amongst them, boding well that Dimmer knows how to write both funny and moving moments of theatre. There’s also an incredible range of ideas present. We have conversations between 11-year-old Dimmer and her mum, as mum bluntly reveals bunny didn’t go to bunny heaven, he was decapitated by a dodgy hutch door – a misguided attempt by mum to explain that death comes to us all! Then there’s a marvellous phone call with God that doesn’t end well, whilst her anxieties about ways to die at the fairground as her boyfriend tries to persuade her to ride on the ferris wheel go from normal to utterly insane rather quickly!
The problem is, as lovely as nearly every scene is, it still feels more a collection of amusing and thoughtful scenes, without enough solidity to bind them all together. Some scenes feel shoehorned in, as if written independently from the main show, felt too good to be left out so forced into the script any way possible. A couple of musical interludes are very clever, full of gentle humour and bucket loads of charm, but sit strangely within the performance. They absolutely have the right to be there but would work so much better if given more reason for their inclusion. It all makes it hard to follow at times as we try to keep up with who, where, even when Dimmer currently is!
It’s not that Dimmer hasn’t constructed something to build the show around: she has, in her friend Kerry’s Death Café (apparently a very real thing since 2011!), a place for those with terminal illness to go and talk about it with others in similar situations. The concept is returned to on and off throughout, and it’s a construct that should form the backbone of the whole show, but it doesn’t currently have enough foundation to hold everything together satisfactorily. Even the simple set nods to the café, with its teapot on the centre of the small table, but it’s all just underutilised. This and Kerry’s Death doula (also real!) should form the basis of everything in the show, allowing something for each scene to cling on to and build around more.
Even without this unstructured framework, Any Day Now is still a thoroughly charming show, with lots of lovely touches. It’s an hour-long thesis on, not quite death, but rather the joy of life. As it ends, thoughts return to that opening question: has anybody else thought about the day they are going to die? And my answer is yes, but after watching Dimmer dissect it all so lovingly, next time that thought pops into my head, maybe I will think of this show instead.
Written by: Martia Dimmer
Produced by: Alice Park-Davies
Any Day Now has completed its run at Etcetera Theatre. It plays at EdFringe from 2 – 10 August. Further information and bookings available here.
