Review: Writers Lab – This Show Is Not About Grief

New writing tackles alternative grief perspective

Tobacco Factory Theatres’ Writers Lab took over the Spielman Theatre this weekend, staging brand new work from up and coming writers.

The Writers Lab programme, is a safe space for beginners and early career playwrights. It gives them a chance to discover their voice and develop their work.

Those who are work-in-progress ready then have the opportunity to see their work performed on stage to a live audience.

It’s an important part of the creative process. Writers can gauge and invite feedback from an audience to take their new work through its next stage of development.

The programme is run by Mike Akers, who has had over fifty plays commissioned and worked extensively in the industry.

We are lucky in Bristol to have such a strong and determined creative sector – albeit fighting against funding cuts – where new writing and work in progress can be seen live on stage.

We popped along to the first play of the day – This Show Is Not About Death by Charlotte Souter.

The one-person play is an exploration of grief. Its perspective is through Charlotte’s personal experience of grieving for her estranged dad. The writing utilises the play within a play format, some time skips and nested metalepsis.

Grief journeys are stories that are often brought to the stage. Whilst it could be an oversaturated subject explored in fringe theatre, the personal journey of each person brings an entirely different slant on the subject.

If you have problematic, difficult or toxic family dynamics growing up, it can have a big impact upon the way you grieve when there is a loss. The trouble with this is that grieving in your own or ambivalent way can be difficult for other people to understand. It then becomes Performance Grief for the benefit of everyone else.

This is where Charlotte’s play comes in. It’s actually a really important perspective and one if we really think about it might be quietly affecting many people we know. It’s thought-provoking and importantly, informs us that every individual’s grief experience is valid.

Charlotte’s dad has died. She’s not seen him for many years because of the hugely disruptive impact he had in her family’s life. This included alcoholism and refusing to seek medical treatment for poor mental health. He had the family home repossessed from under their feet leading to years of unstable housing.

With the confident arrogance that typically befalls a man who has done wrong, his spirit is not satisfied with the way she is grieving and bursts into her workplace to make her do it properly.

Charlotte’s workplace is actually on stage where she is trying to perform a “kooky office comedy” to a live audience.

The office comedy aspect is actually really funny. It also contains a novel idea for trying to access NHS GP appointments. Everything is going well with the play until her father throws the performance into chaos.

Whilst much of it is initially seen through a darkly humorous lens, the manipulative and controlling behaviour is clear to see. He makes the play all about him.

Charlotte valiantly tries to continue delivering the performance but her dad sabotages it entirely, even turning all of the stage lights off at one point. The play gradually turns from Charlotte’s own comedy play into one about her grief.

The dark comedy touches on the difficulty of death admin, the invalidating re-writing of history by the vicar leading the funeral and a nice pop at the cost of staging independent theatre.

It also shows that grief can be messy, it can be raw and it hits home that the process it never actually ends. There is not always closure or a happy ending. It can trigger trauma responses around abandonment all over again. It’s arguably a more complicated grief when it comes to abandonment by a parent.

Charlotte is an engaging storyteller, performing the one-person play with script-in-hand.

Whilst the staging is not what Writers Lab is about, it is about collecting feedback as part of the development process. Having said that, the play is fairly stage ready. Some of the slight lack of clarity from our perspective was not so much about the writing itself, but about giving some aspects of the performance more time around key points and the initial transitions from ghost moments to being back in the office comedy. This is easily rectified with an actor and director and in no way related to the quality of the writing.

This Show Is Not About Death shows how important it is to represent and validate the feelings of those who have estranged family members when it comes to grief. Children should be able to grow up and maintain their set boundaries for their own wellbeing. Their response is valid and should be respected.

You can keep up-to-date with This Show Is Not About Death on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisshowisnotaboutdeath

For more information about Writers Lab: https://tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/writers-lab-summer-2026-term/

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