Directed by the theatre’s Artistic Director, comedian, actor and writer Steve Furst, this bitingly funny and sometimes dark play explores unresolved rivalries as three siblings come together for their father’s funeral.
Marvin Becker has died, and his three children have one afternoon to bury him. There’s Yitzy, who gave up fourteen years of his life — a scholarship, a career, a future — to care for their father; Cooper, who paid for every penny of that care from three thousand miles away but never once visited; and Denise, the middle sibling, who has opinions about both of them and no intention of keeping them to herself. Around this trio are an aunt who has not stopped talking since 1961, a rabbi hired off the internet who turns out to be a working comedian, a eulogy with the wrong names in it and a grave that has been dug to the wrong size.
Review by Richard Lambert.
Funerals can, indeed, sometimes take an unexpectedly comedic turn. There’s something about the intensity of the emotions, the struggle to hold back tears, and the sudden arrival of something utterly absurd that can cause all that pent-up emotion to escape in an inappropriate chuckle.
The first half of this play delivers some cracking one-liners. Set in a funeral home, we meet a rabbi who is perhaps not quite what you might expect, an older sister-in-law who clearly knows more than she’s letting on and is a stickler for tradition, and three children whose differing personalities provide all the ingredients for a recipe of mayhem.
Unfortunately, the technical presentation is less assured. The backstage work lights are fluorescent, bright and glaringly obvious. Rather than snapping these off then fading the house lights the opposite happened. It’s an early indication that the production may not be in the safest of hands technically. There are virtually no lighting cues for the first twenty minutes, followed by a succession of rapid-fire lighting changes that felt unnecessarily obtrusive.
The stage itself is letterbox-shaped, with very little depth, and the set consists of a lectern and four plastic folding chairs. Very fringe, certainly, but hardly inspiring. A large video monitor on the back wall displays the sort of memorial slides one might expect at a funeral service. Very pedestrian director choices have the cast standing sideways to the audience talking to each other in a very static manner for most of the play, with very little movement. The audience often feeling excluded.
The action then moves to the graveyard, with three gravestones and a wooden bench brought on to establish the new location. What follows is largely a succession of squabbles between the siblings and recollections of past misdemeanours, none of which prove particularly engaging.
The real problem is that all this bickering overshadows what ought to be the central comic predicament: the grave has been dug too narrow for the coffin to fit.
This is potentially a wonderful premise for escalating farce, but astonishingly, all the action involving the coffin and the grave takes place offstage. We only know what is happening because an actor is shouting about it from the wings. What should have been the comic highlight of the play is reduced to a series of voices off. We hear that the youngest son is apparently jumping up and down on the coffin in an attempt to force it into the grave, but we see absolutely nothing.
Then, rather inexplicably, a group of American soldiers arrives to pay their respects, as it transpires that the deceased had been leading a double life as a spy. We hear bugles and gun salutes, but once again, see nothing. By this point, what might have been deliciously absurd has become more tiresome than entertaining.
A few further technical mis-cues towards the end don’t help matters, with the final bows left stranded in a prolonged blackout before the production finally concludes.
At just 70 minutes, the play certainly doesn’t outstay its welcome in terms of running time, but it does leave a frustrating sense of missed opportunity. There is a genuinely funny premise here, some excellent early one-liners and plenty of potential for escalating comic chaos. Unfortunately, too much of the action happens out of sight, the sibling arguments become repetitive, and the technical execution does little to support the comedy.
With more inventive staging, sharper pacing and a willingness to actually show the audience the absurdity unfolding around the coffin, this could have been something truly funny. As it stands, it’s a funeral comedy that rather buries its best jokes.
Cast
David Boyle
Shai Forester
Sue Kelvin
Daniel Lipton
Leah Marks
Creatives
Estée Stimler – Writer
Steve Furst – Director
Justin Bovington – Producer
Wits End
A Comedy About Death
9-22 November 2026
Monday to Saturday 7.30pm (not Monday 16th)
Matinees Saturday and Sunday 3pm
Circle and Star Theatre
28 Heath Street, Hampstead, London NW3 6TE
Age recommendation: 18+
Tickets £25