Here's the weird thing about grief: everyone assumes it's the same no matter who has died.
My dad died the day after my 21st birthday (very ungenerous of him). Of my friends who've lost parents, all of them have experienced a huge and unfillable gap left behind by that parent. They know their lives will never be as full without them, and they have to learn how to live with a part of them missing. That's beautiful and sad. It's not quite what happened with me though.
My comedy show, I Will Survive, is a fictionalised parody of my own father's funeral. It explores how weird humanist services can be, the stories we tell ourselves about death and what happens when a man you generally tried to avoid speaking to is finally unable to call.
I wrote the show because I felt a huge amount of guilt after my father's death. I felt like I hadn't stepped up. I felt like I'd been a bad daughter. I didn't feel the way grief had always looked on the telly. It left me with guilt and pathological grief that took me years to heal from, and I eventually thought 'I have something to share that could be of value here - also dad's funeral was mad, and I need to tell someone about it'.
I worked with an amazing team to put the show together. Jen Lunn dramaturged and helped me turn all the chaos into a story that people would actually want to watch. Phil Okwedy directed and made me actually watch-able, and Dr Becky Millar talked to us about the philosophy of grief and how different grief can be across families and cultures. The show's development was generously funded by Arts Council of Wales, and now me and my technician (see: long-suffering boyfriend), Tom Allen are self-funding a tour.
I Will Survive is my attempt to make sense of the weird, wobbly version of grief that happens when you know someone should have been important to you - and was often important in their absence - and you don't miss someone all that much at all. The shows we've had so far have been wonderful - I've had people come up to me and say they feel more prepared for when their own estranged family members pass away, or that they don't feel as guilty for the way they responded to previous deaths they've experienced.
I'm so proud of this show, and I'm so excited to share it with audience in two capital cities this October. London and Cardiff: expect silliness, sarcasm, and an unnecessarily elaborate PowerPoint.
I Will Survive is about death, guilt and the stories we tell ourselves when someone dies. It's also, I hope, a reminder that there isn't a right way to grieve - particularly when a parent wasn't really a parent to you.
I Will Survive is at Effra Social as part of Lambeth Fringe on Sunday 4 October at 7pm. Tickets are £10.
