Brighton Fringe comedy review

As stand-ups increasingly mine their own experiences, audiences have become used to comedy shows about death and grief. Even before more confessional trends, funerals were long the stuff of pub jokes, for the very reason that they are such sad events which humour helps to process.

Against this, the personable Emma Ashley-King needs a tighter focus. The topic of death alone is too broad – nor is it quite the taboo it once was. 

Yet she seems to hold back here, perhaps for fear of being accused of trivialising grief or upsetting anyone. But it means she neither gets too personal about how the loss of a loved one has affected her, nor too purposeful in suggesting how she thinks we, as a society and individuals, should mark the end of life. The suggestion that we’ve got it wrong in being dour and mournful is implicit, but not fully explored.

Death is clearly a subject the comic is very interested in – she talks about her hope of becoming a funeral planner one day – and she certainly has the empathy that job requires. But that same people-pleasing personality trait keeps Death Becomes Us largely superficial.

Ashley-King, a Portsmouth-based comedian of nine years standing,  shares a few facts about funeral Ritual and the amusing ways a few ancient Greeks met their end; we collaborate to come up with a suitable send-off for Mr Blobby; and we play a word-association game to get us thinking about graveyard and coffins. 

All this is squished into a forced structure about volcanoes – the analogy being that the point of eruption equates to the point of death. She has a reason for this, but it doesn’t really hold up, and feels very artificial.

Her hour is enjoyably good natured – certainly advancing the idea that death doesn’t need to be grim – but it feels like a lot of warm-up, softening the ground for more substantial material that never arrives. And it is very unlikely to make anyone reappraise their attitude to death, if that was the intention.

Review date: 13 May 2024
Reviewed by: Steve Bennett