A Clown thrusts to Michael Jackson. I am greeted with this as enter the theatre. It is oddly relaxing. Somehow it settles you into a mood. (I find it hard to laugh, so this helped.) As a bewigged head spins on a turntable, Casual Violence’s claim to the bizarre is fulfilled. But Choose Death is more than this. To label it simply bizarre taints it, it suggests lack of coherent thought. The strength of Choose Death is how the bizarre is met with melancholy.

This, as the title suggests, cannot be unexpected. The play follows the journey of miserable people to death. Age, murder and suicide lead all, eventually to a paradise of Gnomes (see below). And while Choose Death filled a theatre with cheer, it left it also with pathos.

It is a jigsaw of a show. Chronology is fissured. The tales wind amongst one another through brief sketches and these ends are tied by a pianist. Though plonked on the edge of the stage, his sparkling red suit and objective expression, his music somehow narrated the stories. And while the somber moods might have been ironic, and the bustling beats of others been comic, the music of the show must not be overlooked. It is an achievement in itself.

As fir the characters: armless, grandmamma murderers, Siamese twin hit men: their wild journeys lead them all to death. The show uncovers the tradition in certain families to taxidermy dead relatives. What Choose Death shows best however, is suicide. It presents the hopelessness of the lives of a bubble-gun seller and a Clown. The muted Clown, like Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp, burst one with giggles, while saddening them also.

Eventually all the miserable die. For skeptics, this is it. As the ageing old man says from his death mattress, nothing is after death. In this case, it leads to reincarnation. One becomes a Gnome. The show is sung out by the cast dressed in Smurf hats, to the refrain of “no place like Gnome!”

Choose Death provides us with succinct stories and they pop with laughs but ooze with misery. This is their brilliance. With the show preparing for Edinburgh Fringe Festival later this year we look forward to seeing them again up there.

A truly brilliant show. ★★★★

By Patrick Wheatley

As the house filled, I heard two middle-aged women discussing their decision to attend: “well, they said they were good, I’m sure they’ll be good.” Even before the show had begun it was clear that their two previous summers in Scotland …