Anna Burnside reviews a production that’s ‘funny and crackingly paced while never losing the humanity of the subject matter’.
Sadmin, the paperwork and processes of bereavement, is grim and relentless. Lions, American duo Lightning Rod Special’s absurdist show about the aftermath of the death of both their fathers, is funny and crackingly paced while never losing the humanity of the subject matter.
Scott R Shephard’s father died of throat cancer. Alice Yorke lost hers in a bike accident. His third. Lions is about the three-week windows in which they became “clerks of death”.
The set is a long table, lit by candles, cluttered with the detritus of the deceaseds’ lives. There are basketballs, baseballs, obsolete technology and a bike helmet. Scott and Alice are wearing, inexplicably, comedy Dickensian costumes, dreadful wigs and even worse moustaches.
Together they touch on the two fathers’ lives, achievements and failures with impeccable pacing and a mixture of theatrical techniques including object theatre, clown and Christmas Carol spoof. There’s some Barnum and Bailey in there, as well as melodramatic film music and fake snow.
In an accurate representation of grief, the mood pings between rage, frenetic list-making and despair brought on by the inability to figure out a computer password.
Yorke and Shephard are hugely accomplished performers, handling the personal material and the comedy as a seamless team. It’s a comedy that meditates on mortality and legacy without ever dropping the baseball.
Lions is part of Summerhall Arts Festival programme. It performs at 19:30 (60min) in the Tech Cube Zero space until 30 August 2026 (no performances 18th or 25th). For further details, go to the website.
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