I don’t have a good relationship with death. My best friend Rob died when we were both 27 - brain tumor. Clubbing in Camden together on the Saturday night, dead by the following Tuesday; 15th February 1998. I’ve lived my life since utterly fearful of death, especially of how sudden, unannounced and brutal it can be, how it turns your life upside and how it has driven my ambition to lead a life worth that of two people, mine and Rob’s.

So when a fan of our shows, Dr Maggie Keeble, emailed me and said she’d like to talk about the theme for our next show being end of life, I was not filled with joy, I was filled with dread. Maggie’s a passionate and persuasive woman, but she also talks a lot of sense and I soon realised that we were on the same page on many things, including life, priorities, empowerment and communication.

With trepidation, the research for Dead Good began… I research themes for difficult shows that I become passionate about - from forced adoption in the 1960s, to PTS in the military, to living with dementia (which started out as all negative, doom and gloom, until of course I found Joy, aka Audrey). With my hand on my heart, though, I can honestly say that the research on end of life has been the most surprising and life changing. I’m not researching about grief (don’t need to, having done my fair share on that already), I’m researching about choice, relationships, adventures and love.

I was then introduced to Dr Lucy Martin, GP and Medical Director of the Mary Stevens Hospice in Stourbridge. Her honesty and openness left me feeling shocked and intrigued. She invited me to the hospice. The hospice left me feeling surprised and stunned. Then I met Dave, a patient there. He left feeling overwhelmed with excitement and adoration. What caused all these feelings? My preconceptions of hospices have been smashed - Mary Stevens is noisy, full of music and laughter, activities, jokes and a cupboard full of gin. Ruth, the sister, is utterly genuine and generous with time, stories and has a sense of wanting to make anything possible, from bringing a horse to the window of a patient in his final days (he loved horses), to getting into bed and holding a patient close in their final moments of life, to making a wedding happen, hours before another patient’s death. Then there’s Dave, oh my. Dave talked to me about how his cancer has totally changed him, his relationships, his way with people, his charitable nature, his capacity to love… Dave and his capacity to love; it’s a like a bottomless pit. 

I’ve interviewed a lot of people - from dear, dear old friend, Barry Goldman in Munich who ran into death, fought it with all his might, and is "still on the run" using humour and stubborn determination as his weapon (let’s meet up, Barry). I’ve spoken to Jay many times; she became a doula (end of life companion, equivalent to a midwife at the beginning) after she cared so beautifully, courageously and creatively for both her 47 year old “loveable rogue” brother and her mum (teaching me also about doing all this as a Hindu female - there's a story there in itself). A GP friend talked to me about caring for his dying mother - with the top tip, expensive ice cream - the most creamy, full fat...oh and brandy. Spoon it in; her two favourite medicines.

Each person I interview has a story in itself. Because we all have stories, incredible stories of love, life and death. They are all worth telling. Dead Good will be an amalgamation of all these.

I’m reading, too; a lot. Intimate Death by Marie de Hennezel is a book to add your bucket list! She writes as a professional psychologist in a Parisian hospice and talks about how entering death offers the most intimate of experiences. When death comes close, and sadness rules, there is still room for life and joy, says Marie, and feelings more deep and intense than ever before. She quotes people’s feelings; “I need people to treat me as if I wasn't ill, for them to laugh and be natural. Our bodies have gone to hell, but our spirits are free.”
 
Kathryn Mannix’s book, With the End in Mind is what I’m reading at the moment and a particular chapter called Tiny Dancer has already jumped out at me. It's about Holly, a young mother close to the end of her life, who finds herself on a drug that has given her restlessness that is so extreme that she has kept the neighbours and her family awake all night with loud music and dancing. Kathryn (so wisely) suggests that the family take Holly out to the local shopping arcade for a change of scenery (whilst Kathryn goes back to the hospice to pick up another drug to relieve the endless, exhausting restlessness). When she returns, the whole family and community are outside having an 'impromptu pavement party'.This was Holly’s last day of her life, yet she was encouraged to keep living until her final breath.

One character that I've created is based on Vamos Theatre’s first mechanic (a beautifully kind and patient man who helped us out of so many scrapes, who gave so much time to a young theatre company with a big van and little clue on how to look after it). I was told he was terminally ill and that he was working all hours to make sure he sorted his business out in order to leave as much security for his wife and daughter. He then packed up and moved away to be on his own. That’s the last I heard of him. Only last night, I discovered that he moved to another country and by some miracle is still alive. I'm stunned yet again and am now searching for him, to find out his story. Please will you tell me?

I want to tell a story about the relationship of two male strangers who meet in a hospice. A great friend and Vamos Amigo has recently become a patient at St Richard’s Hospice and she talks about the amazing friendships she has made with total strangers with whom you immediately have a common theme to link your friendship - people who talk so openly and intelligently and emotionally about death. Can we learn from the dying? Surely these are the people we need to be learning from. They can also teach us how to live. There’s a scene in Dead Good, that’s called F*** it, let’s live! Rob would have laughed his head off at that. I remember his laugh the most.

Bob Mortimer is a lifelong inspiration and so I loved his latest BBC Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing - a true story about two men’s life changing health scares (a must watch, ladies and gentlemen, for anyone who likes to laugh - if you don't, then avoid it like the plague) and then a friend suggested watching a Japanese  film called Departures. I recommend both, but most of all I recommend talking; talking to everyone about death and dying, fears and wishes, bucket lists and adventures. Please can we just talk about death and dying, for heaven’s sake?
 
Anyway, I must dash, I’ve got a funeral to go to. Mike…lovely Mike. Another life, another story…

Rachael Savage

Dead Good is a co-production with Corn Exchange Newbury and London International Mime Festival.