Kill Me Now

A dark comedy about coming to terms with grief, Kill Me Now is by critically acclaimed Welsh new writing theatre company Dirty Protest (Sugar Baby, How to be Brave) and award-winning playwright Rhiannon Boyle (BBC and National Theatre Wales Writer in Residence 2019; Safe From Harm, BBC Radio 4). This funny and heart-wrenching piece is created specifically for a Zoom audience and will be livestreamed by Summerhall for the Edinburgh Fringe 2021. Welcome to undertaker Anna Morgan-Jones' live Zoom webinar. Her goal? To sell you the lucrative franchise model of her "end-of-life celebration" funeral business. But, can the self-confessed Grief Guru make it through her PowerPoint presentation – full of rainbow coffins, leopard print hearses and beer-can shaped scatter tubs – or will secrets, accidental truths and internet trolls cause her to unravel right before our eyes? After a year when many lost loved ones and many were touched by grief, Kill Me Now is about the healing power of connection. This gently interactive piece gives audience members the autonomy to participate as much or as little as they wish throughout the Zoom. Created using and for the platform, Kill Me Now offers a more holistic approach to digital theatre. It ensures a live experience which communicates directly with the audience; it is empowered by its format and contributes to the development of a new, increasingly accessible, forum for performance. Writer Rhiannon Boyle comments, Dealing with grief, Kill Me Now is a dark comedy set in Covid times which will offer audiences some much needed fun and relief. The story and the themes of the play are very close to my heart having lost my father after years of him suffering with a long-term degenerative disease. I want to bring honesty to a subject many people are afraid to talk about. We're living in a time where we're collectively grieving - whether that be grieving loved ones, grieving theatrical experiences or grieving our old lives. Connecting with others and making sense of it all whilst finding the light and humour can be a very powerful healing process.