Dying to Please You to be staged at Bristol’s Jacobs Wells Baths
Posted on: 04 Apr 2017The ‘dark comedy’ exploring death and cancer was written by the Bristol-born play-write Tess Cartwright, who lost her lover to the disease. It will play at the Jacobs Wells Baths between April 27th-30th.
Vid Warren was 23-years-old when he was diagnosed with brain cancer, and, when he died 20 months later, he left behind his partner Tess Cartwright who had been ‘head over heels in love’ with the young man.
Rather than be defeated by the chronic grief which followed, Tess turned her pain into comedy, using a technique that she had picked up from time spent with Penny Brohn, the UK’s leading holistic cancer charity.
“Vid was an incredible human being and we were a team,” she said. “As we bounced between denial, hope and acceptance, we used ‘tumour humour’ to diffuse the pain.
“Our determination to stay present and thrive with cancer was largely due to the charity’s positivity and techniques it taught through free retreats and courses. We lived from the heart and laughed in the face of death, which allowed us to stay in the present and enjoy the life he had left.”
Tess has continued to laugh in the face of death even after Vid’s passing, penning a ‘dark comedy’ called Dying to Please You, which she performs with her company the Modest Geniuses.
To thank Penny Brohn for her work, she will stage the show for four nights in the Jacobs Wells Baths between 27th-30th April, with proceeds going to the charity.
Tickets cost £10, £8.50 concessions from http://dyingtopleaseyou.brownpapertickets.com. For more on Penny Brohn, call 0303 3000 118, email info@pennybrohn.org.uk or visit www.pennybrohn.org.uk
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An ardent Geordie minus the accent, Sam seemingly strove to get as far away from the Toon as possible, as soon as university beckoned. Three undergraduate years at UoB were more than ample time for Bristol (as it inevitably does) to get under his skin, and so here he remains: reporting, as Assistant Editor, on the cultural happenings which so infatuated him with the city. Catch him at sam@365bristol.com.
