Edinburgh Fringe theatre review

Death and comedy always go together, and Corpsing aims to build a droll and dark farce around the taboo, Joe Orton style.

Elliot Hubble has inherited an undertaker’s business in a small Scottish town  – and it is doing suspiciously brisk business. It’s only a minor spoiler to reveal that Charlie, its only employee, has taken matters into his own hands to drum up some extra bodies to be buried.

However, if you’re going to make a comedy out of bumping people off, you probably don’t want to raise too many questions about the ethics of it. Writers Calum Ferguson and Lewis Lauder, both Napier University graduates, make it a little too real, a little too Harold Shipman, as their gruesome twosome debate the morality of the involuntary euthanasias they carry out on town’s older residents.

Although the laughs take a while to emerge, Ferguson and Lauder know how to build and resolve a drama, even if there are a few holes in the plot. As Charlie, Lewis Gemmell stands out, suitably odd for a man who spends too much around corpses, while as Elliot, Dillon MacDonald is, at least initially, the centre of normality around which the louder characters revolve. 

Things take a step up with the arrival of irritatingly over-friendly auditor Fiona (Anya Borrows) who’s likely to unearth huge discrepancies in the accounts… and maybe the even more sinister reason behind their booming business. 

As the jeopardy rises, so does the black comedy, and the requisite twist and turns, come satisfyingly into play. Unlike many of the poor saps in the story, Corpsing comes to a rewarding end.

• Corpsing is on at TheSpace Triplex at 11.30am on Wednesday and Friday

Review date: 24 Aug 2021
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett
Reviewed at: TheSpaceTriplex