Review: DEATH SUITS YOU, VAULT Festival

Death is sick and tired of being underappreciated. Nobody understands the commitment it takes to end people's lives. "I never really know how to introduce myself", he says, everyone always assumes it's their time to go. After a brilliant introduction at Camden Fringe in 2019, Death personifies again to tell his own version of the facts.

What we might see as casualties and misfortunes take industry and energy to plan. Years of work go into one single moment. Death revels in explaining the creativity of his job, how he takes pleasure in adding flair as he orchestrates someone's journey to their demise. He hikes up the drama of his lethal schemes as much as he can, coordinating clever coincidences, but humans still oversimplify what he does.

Quadruple (at a minimum) threat Sam Hooper and composer Robert Tripolino write a scrumptiously macabre play that defies genres and narrative styles. It's a uniquely intoxicating cocktail of grim provocation and grave allure topped with a cheeky splash of sacrilege. A playful, sophisticated sadism permeates the production until - believe it or not - the narrative turns even more Stygian, revealing Death's own shortcomings. Having described flamboyant, jarring scenarios from neglected children to suicidal murders, drownings to car crashes, it's school massacres that transform Death into the arresting figure he is. And not in the way you might think.

Hooper's grin is bitterly overcast with deep shadows while precise poetry takes over his speech once more, mouring the loss of his control as a young man goes on an impromptu rampage. He is an electric, eclectic performer. Straight prose flexes into genre-bending songs, elegant dance pieces, or rhythmic poems according to the deadly scenario he's recollecting. Whether it is through a pop song, dramatic alliteration, or measured movement that flouts gravity (and The Vaults' rough floors), a documentarist's interest in the meaning and impact of mortality shines through Gabrielle Scawthorne's direction.

Death is fascinated by people's strenuous obsession with life - even when their impulse is to end it. Dry, deadpan, dark-as-hell humour coexists peacefully with a profound reverence for the subject matter. It's remarkable how Hooper and Tripolino manage to achieve such a dynamic variety of tones while remaining wholly (and wholesomely) respectful, giving their audience pause.

Sardonic quips swiftly return to a touching sobriety in Hooper's finely tuned script. It's weirdly life-affirming to meet death as humanity's biggest fan and lifelong companion. We're glad Death Suits You has come back after the pandemic. He's been busy...

Death Suits You runs at VAULT Festival until 10 February.

You can read our previous review of the show here.

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