The Grim
The grim reality of life continues at Mallory and Son, undertakers, with titular scion Shaun in his plastic apron attending to the daily routines of death and awaiting the arrival of his perpetually tardy junior assistant, Robert, for today their booking is a special guest, a bloodied star among the corpses who will have none of that closed-casket nonsense, for truly people will wish to gawk at the cold body of Jackie “the Guillotine” Gallagher.
Killed before his case could come to trial, it was presumed that he was responsible for the “London Park Murders,” the charred, dismembered bodies of three girls found in bin bags across the city, a fourth missing but yet to turn up, Gallagher caught when he broke into the house of the investigating officer, Detective Inspector Graham Fisher, for reasons unknown, decapitating the terrified policeman before he was stopped by a hail of bullets…
Set in 1964 and filled with gallows humour, pick and mix sweets and a dash of superstition associated with those who deal with death on a daily basis, Shaun (writer Edmund Morris) tries to remain sceptical but as recent survivor of an incident where he believes he almost died, Rob (Louis Davison) is easily scared, his “mad Irish brain” filled with tales of the fearsome black dog which haunts the graveyards, The Grim, glimpsed only by those who will die shortly thereafter; his aunt could have verified the story, but she’s dead.
Directed by Ben Woodhall, the cast lit starkly from beneath to exaggerate the horror and the shifting shadows of the mortuary, the ringing telephone an intrusion of unnatural modernity into this place of respect and tradition, the orderly routines of the attendants are broken by the unfinished story of Gallagher (Harry Carter), a dominating presence laid before them but not at peace, refusing to go easy to his rest and take the truth with him when lies tarnish his name.
The Grim continues at Underbelly on Bristo Square until Sunday 25th August
