Granny Jackson’s Dead – join the mourners at this sad time of loss (Big Telly Theatre Company as part of NI Science Festival) #NISF24

“Sorry for your loss” accompanied by a firm handshake seemed like the most appropriate thing to say as I stepped out of the mizzle and walked inside a house on the Malone Road to meet a line-up of grieving relatives.

Granny Jackson may be dead, but she’s living on in the hearts of her family, the folks who live next door, and the many audience members mourners who are turning up at her wake during NI Science Festival. It’s a Big Telly Theatre Company production, so expect to be whisked between bedrooms and the kitchen, given a plate of ham sandwiches to deliver elsewhere in the house. Expect to be gently involved – perhaps even emotionally – and then expect the unexpected as the cast move from their individual stations to construct the dramatic denouement.

The deceased’s daughter Susan (Shelly Atkinson) is agitated now that she’s been shaken out of the distance she clearly maintained from Granny Jackson. Grandson Darren (Gavin Pedan) and his business partner Chad (Aidan Crowe/Michael Curran Dorsano) have set up a digital memorialisation company and Granny Jackson was the first person whose memories have been captured for posterity. But that’s not to everyone’s taste in the family circle.

Ronnie (Emily Tracey) is taking a more spiritual approach to wishing farewell to the old dear. Maureen (Rosie McClelland) from next door is sitting quietly beside the coffin in the good room, remembering better times with the lively 83-year-old. Meanwhile Joe (Ciaran Nolan) sees the mourners as potential housebuyers for a property that he is trying to sell with undue haste.

Granny Jackson’s Dead asks its audiences to consider how and why and what we remember about people we cared for. Do we want to be able to forget aspects of their lives and character? Do we want to hear their voice again? Do we realise that modern technology could put words into the mouth of someone who is deceased? Are the dead being monetised? The concept of digital memorialisation isn’t laboured – though there are a rich set of technology demonstrations and artefacts woven into the storytelling. (Do check out the creepy jars in the downstairs en suite.)

The cast are constantly adapting, injecting storylines into the narrative while ad libbing around the fertile imaginations of each new group of mourners. An interdisciplinary team from the National Centre for Social Research and Manchester Metropolitan University’s School of Theatre and School of Digital Art have been involved in the development of the production. They correctly credit Big Telly director Zoë Seaton as “a hijacker of the familiar”. A good 45 minutes after the wake ended, a majority of those in attendance were still sitting in The Harrison’s front bar next door discussing what had just happened.

At the best of times, death and control of the rituals that follow can be sources of tension, as relatives wrestle for control over the choreography and the narrative. Secrets are spilled rather than shared. Big Telly accentuate those divisive moments and neatly needle Susan from being a digital sceptic to someone who suddenly appreciates what (selfish) comfort it could offer. And since it’s a wake, do expect a bit of a singsong.

The show has been so carefully crafted to gently explore our attitudes, tolerances and reaction to death, grief tech, and the ethics of loss. Attending any wake or funeral can involve a bit of acting: there’s often a vocabulary, a tone, a measured way of unexcitedly addressing the communal grief. Waiting in the queue outside the venue, even before we entered the building and met the family, another audience member mourner and I began to discuss our imaginary backstory for the unknown woman at the heart of our evening’s entertainment. The more you enter into the spirit of the event, the more your mind will engage with the themes and challenges it presents. Conscious that I have friends and colleagues who have experienced loss very recently, it’s probably also important to add a reassurance that it’s all done in the best possible taste.

Big Telly’s Granny Jackson’s Dead continues at NI Science Festival until Sunday 25 February, and there are plans for a wider (UK) tour. It’s good to see that so many will get the opportunity to pay their respects to the women who one family member quipped was such “a wild ticket”.

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