Review: DOUBLE ACT, Southwark Playhouse

Heard joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor...I am Pagliacci.”

Alan Moore, Watchmen

Nick Hyde’s tragicomic Double Act uses clowning and comedy to tell the story of a young man (played by Hyde and Oliver Maynard in white face paint) who wakes up and sets off to kill himself somewhere on the South Coast. He has a few things, though, to tick off his list before he throws himself off a cliff.

The central thrust of the unnamed protagonist’s journey is a variation on a philosophical exercise, perhaps the ultimate philosophical exercise. If Death were to suddenly tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear that you had sixty seconds left to live, what would you do? Call your mum? Quietly commend your soul to the afterlife? Send a frantic message to your significant other?

What if Death is feeling generous and gives you an hour? You could make some final calls, write notes to loved ones and tidy your room. Or drink dry every bottle you have and go out in a blaze of very messy glory. Or just put on fresh underwear, slink under a duvet and  occupy yourself as you await the inevitable. There’s no judgement here.

Then what if Death tells you that a war has just started somewhere and they would be back in a month? Obviously you would quit the day job at the first opportunity, but then what? Finally get round to writing your will? Travel to somewhere special? Spend time with the nearest and dearest and plan one big blowout party?

Finally, what would you do if Death didn't return after a month and you found out that had an unknown number of years, maybe even decades, ahead of you? And how would it be different to what you’re doing now?

Whether you are on Team YOLO or Team Carpe Diem (which are really just the same team), this is an evergreen area ripe for discussion. Hyde thankfully focuses the plot only on a single day but still manages to make it seem much longer than that. The idea of having a monologue carried by two actors helps keep the energy up and makes introducing the other characters a more fluid affair. On their way to their appointment with the Grim Reaper, our protagonist bumps into a classmate who is now a full-on moneyed-up finance bro, lunches with the ex-girlfriend that they left on read and has now moved onto Ted the fireman, and chats to a kindly train passenger who offers a glimpse of a possible future.

Less a travelogue, more a series of barely-connected and overlong vignettes, Hyde and Maynard struggle to make us care about our protagonist or truly empathise with his plight. There’s no substantial reason offered as to what brought the situation to this unbearable point or why this person feels the need to take this drastic step. If every young person with a secure job and caring mother who can afford to rent a flat in Highgate wanted to commit suicide, Londoners would be tripping over bodies daily. 

The pair work well together even if the laboured storylines could be whittled into finer points. There’s a nod or two to the 1992 film Trainspotting (a mad dash to a station toilet stall is a set up for much lavatorial humour including the evocative line “it was like London Bridge at peak hour with only one gate open”) but too often the play has all the appeal of actual trainspotting.

The clowning (perhaps appropriately enough) doesn’t take itself too seriously and seems tacked on rather than in Double Act’s DNA. That’s a shame considering the number of great clowns London has been spoilt by recently: Doctor Brown engaged and enraged audience members without a single word; through their comedies, Spymonkey showed how they are still masters at jerking tears from us (usually of laughter, though not always); and the Pierrot-like Puddles delivered an emotional wallop purely through the power of his singing. Maybe there was a day when face paint and half-assed slapstick could pass for clowning; that day has long passed.

Even though Double Act’s young London-based protagonist is not typical of those who sadly end their own lives, the play to its credit does raise an important and increasingly bleak modern issue. The latest figures show that male suicide is at its highest level since 1999 with men accounting for around three-quarters of all suicides but there’s also a crisis when it comes to women with numbers of fatalities not seen since 1994. People in the early fifties are about 50% more likely to kill themselves than those in their twenties, and the age-standardised suicide rate in the North West is twice that for the capital. At less than four per cent of all deaths, falling from high places is far from the most common option with almost three-fifths of cases in the last year due to hanging.

This play comes to a (Beachy) head with some pondering of the age-old question: “to die or not to die?” Is it nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of singledom and a dull job, or to take arms against an intrusive boss and poor career choices and oppose them by resigning and finding something more interesting to do instead? Double Act is hardly Hamlet but, then again, what is?

If you or someone you know are having feelings of despair or emotionally distressed, please click here to find details of organisations that offer advice and support.

Double Act continues at Southwark Playhouse until 5 April.

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