Following two years of COVID-induced slumber, drama has reawakened in Oxford like a Blue Peter tortoise after a winter of enforced hibernation. The flowering I've witnessed this term has been beautiful, inspiring and triumphantly creative. Of the twelve shows I’ve seen in the last few weeks, nine have been original pieces of work. That in itself is impressive – but on top of that, the talent on display has been remarkable. And even when shows haven’t come off, at least they went down fighting.
Dead Man’s Suitcase is an original musical, written and directed by Felix Westcott. It’s packed with toe-tapping tunes, its lyrics are genuinely witty, its story is instantly relatable but at the same time totally fantastical, and its company of just four performers carry the whole thing off with aplomb. In other words, it’s a treat.
Our hero is John, an everyman in a literal dead-end job. He writes obituaries but yearns for greater things. He’s passed over for promotion, argues with his wife, and spends his nights with a crying baby instead of sleeping. In a moment of madness he decides to fake his own death… But does it bring him the new life he seeks?
I was reminded of Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba’s wonderful graphic novel Daytripper, about an obituary writer who yearns to be a novelist, and who literally dies at the end of every chapter. But perhaps Dead Man’s Suitcase is more like The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin meets Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. It has the cynical humour of the former, and the musical/lyrical liveliness of the latter. One highlight is John’s abortive visit to a psychiatrist who, in a brilliantly dextrous lyrical display, solves all of John’s problems before his patient has even opened his mouth (promising that after this he won’t even have to ‘fuck his own mother’).
The songs moved the action onward, rather than simply focusing on the character’s situation, and while there was a consistent style to the music, there was also genuine variety in content, with ensemble pieces, anthems, duets and modern-major-general-style tongue-twisters.
Staging was also simple but effective. One unexpectedly intense scene features John repeatedly changing his baby’s nappy, turning the light on and off with increasing speed before confessing in song that he hates his own child. As well as being powerful, it’s also one of the key moments in the show that start to make the audience realise that John may not be quite as ‘everyman’ as he initially seems.
This is a show with a message, and it’s not afraid to shout it out loud: take responsibility for your own life! It’s maybe a little trite when set against the outrageousness of the plot, but this is a minor criticism. This is one Dead Man’s Suitcase that deserves to be reopened in venues beyond Oxford.