Paul McCartney is Dead

A dystopian world, after a violent revolution, where all but state-sanctioned music has been banned…is the setting of Ben Elton’s Queen behemoth We Will Rock You, right?

It’s also the world where Broken Glass Theatre Company have set Paul McCartney is Dead, but it is at that point where the two plays part company.

Instead of stadium rock anthems, the audience is plunged into a world of paranoia and conspiracy theories, where lies are more comforting than the truth could ever be.

As their neighbours disappear, suddenly and mysteriously, two brothers, Paul and Simon, await their own relocation by the sinister new leaders, called the Corporation.

Simon, played by Steve King, is haunted by lost love for Amber (Imogen Goodman) but Luke Surl, playing his brother Paul, gets the more interesting part.

Obsessed with what is lost, Paul preserves fragments of his former existance in chemical filled jars, and only comes to life when retelling the conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney was once killed in a car crash and replaced by a lookalike.

The importance that he places on this story, in a world where The Beatles can’t even be listened to, in  the face of real menace at their doorstep, is key to the play’s hopelessness. When uncertainty reigns, any truth matters, even one that’s false.

The story is pieced together by the brothers’ delightfully unhinged housemate Libby, played brilliantly by a haunting Louisa Coward, who learns of the brothers’ past by their confused memories and ghostly visitors. Her fractious and at times playful relationship with Paul is the most engaging in the show, while that between the two brothers is more undeveloped.

Cast members playing of the foreboding Corporation, who double as clairvoyant Libby’s ghostly harbingers, have smaller roles but make their presence felt throughout the play, setting the ominous tone perfectly. 

They, along with the clever choice of setting at The Rag Factory, made stark and claustrophobic with heavy black drapes, means a sense of unease reverberates through space and the audience can never feel truly comfortable.

Non-linear and just an hour long, it is impossible to get to grips with the reality of the trio’s circumstances and the audience are left to fill in the blanks, knowing just fractions of the truth, just like the characters themselves.

This is not a play that spoon feeds its audience instead, Paul McCartney is Dead, is uncompromising and full of complex ideas.

The antidote to We Will Rock You and its superficially flashy West End neighbours, Broken Glass are producing fringe theatre that’s bold and ambitious, and are well worth keeping an eye out for.

Paul McCartney is Dead finished on Monday 30 August and was showing at:

The Rag Factory
Unit 2, 37 Heneage Street
Spitalfields
E1 5LJ

www.brokenglassplay.co.uk