Theatre / Kelly Jones
Writer Kelly Jones explores the cost of dying in ‘My Mother’s Funeral: The Show’
Kelly Jones describes herself as “a gay working class playwright and neo burlesque performer” (the latter as her alter ego Cortina Ford) from Dagenham, whose literary preoccupations are “queerness, class and her relationship to home”.
Her recent projects include When You See Me (Scottee and Friends), BUMP (New Theatre and New Wolsey), Comma (Sherman Theatre) and Room to Escape (BBC Arts).
Jones won the NPCS Writer Guild Award for her play My Mother’s Funeral: The Show, which was funded by Arts Council England, Theatre Development Trust and multiple individual donations, and developed with support from the National Theatre’s Generate programme.
is needed now More than ever
The play follows Abigail, whose mum dies, leaving her with meeting the prohibitive costs of arranging a funeral.
Did you know how expensive it is to die? It’s £4000 for the funeral. Extra for flowers. And even more if you want sausage rolls. Otherwise, she will get a council funeral and an unmarked grave.
Abigail finds herself having to pivot, and write about her mum in order not only to lend her writing project the authenticity the theatre demands from her, but to subsidise the bills she is facing.
Through an impish lens, Jones is able to use her protagonist’s situation to interrogate societal inequalities in our treatment of the living, and the dead.
My Mother’s Funeral: The Show is at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic on September 24-28 at 8pm, with an additional 3pm matinee show on Saturday. Tickets are available at www.bristololdvic.org.uk.
The show is a Paines Plough, Mercury Theatre, Belgrade Theatre, Landmark Theatres, and Royal & Derngate, Northampton co-production.
Main photo: Rebecca Need-Menear
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