Review: Before I’m Dead, The Glitch

James Rushbrooke’s script, Before I’m Dead, won the 2026 VCA Playwriting Award and now runs at The Glitch for the next four weeks. Seventeen-year-old Zara (Myla Carmen) is dying of a brain tumour. The play’s title goes all in on this. She has one dying wish: she wants to go on the radio to read her own eulogy in her own words. She’s been referred to therapist Stuart (Pete Ashmore) from a make a wish type of charity to see if he can make this happen.

Zara’s life is interrupted by seizures and memory loss, evocatively presented as if there were interference with the lights and sound. Carmen deftly captures the shifting moods of a teenager, including of course, the inevitable defiance of that age. She is most compelling in the quieter, more vulnerable moments, with Zara’s admission of being scared one of the play’s strongest. This is really neatly done – wordlessly – by Carmen.

Ashmore excels, drawing us in and investing us strongly in the care he develops for Zara. There is a real warmth from him and he radiates a core strength – someone whose day job is literally to help dying children. He doesn’t even give a hint of this being a burden but remains unflappable and committed to helping these children. It’s a hugely human performance, tender and warm even in the face of such sadness.

We learn a little more about Stuart through a judicious use of flashback, hinting that his own childhood might not have been so happy. His loneliness perhaps feeds into the care he now gives to the children. There is some effective multi-roling as the actors swap roles to play each other’s parents in both flashback and present-day scenes.

For such a sad subject, there are a lot of laughs. Humour is found in even the darkest subjects and saddest of days. Some black, gallows humour and it’s well written; Zara sets the boundaries, first slightly shocking Stuart but then as he adjusts and their trust builds, he knows where he can push back too.

Rushbrooke’s comedy highlight is a scene exploring the reaction when Zara’s mother brings a complaint about how close Stuart has become to her daughter. The pair replay the conversations with hand puppets and a hastily swapped pink wig gleefully trading roles and lines.

In a heavy play and one where you can hear tears around the audience, Rushbrooke never pushes for tears. His script is smart enough to bring them naturally, allow awkward pauses and silences and his restraint gives the sadness more weight when it really lands.

Beneath all of this is a wish to be seen. Stuart wanted to be seen by his distant mother and now Zara wants to be seen, not just for her illness but with control over her story. It is hers, she needs to read it to the world preferably on Radio 4. This need helps make a connection with Stuart and to unlock something within him. Zara sees more of him than he expects, than he might have wanted to show; after all how do you say no to a dying seventeen-year-old when she asks you personal questions? Both offer the other something they are missing, and this is where Rushbrooke’s script perfectly lands its emotional core.

Written by James Rushbrooke
Directed by Oli Savage
Assistant Director: Nat Neri
Produced by Eleanor Shaw

Before I’m Dead plays at The Glitch until Sunday 21 June