Jack Rooke’s Good Grief: a decade retrospective of capitalising on my dead dad to varied levels of failure and success.
BAFTA-winning writer and recovering spoken-word artist Jack Rooke (Creator of Hulu/Channel 4’s Big Boys) brings back his debut comedy-theatre show Good Grief, a decade on from it launching his career.
Featuring the original show (co-written with his 80-year-old nan Sicely) and some present day musings, this retrospective further explores grief, ambition, being a class traitor, milking having a dead dad for personal/professional gain, the innocence of writing just for oneself before the interference of ‘telly w*nkers’, and the palpable regret of his own decline into becoming said ‘telly w*nker’.
Content warning: this show may contain potentially triggering stories around grief, suicide and Geri leaving the Spice Girls in May 1998.
Directed by Gabriel Bisset-Smith (now also a ‘telly w*nker’).
‘Good Grief 2.0 [is] a delightful and still affecting watch’
Guardian
‘Engaging, frank and humorous’
New York Times
★★★★
‘A delight… cheerily but sensitively tackling the most painful of subjects and finding hope in them’
Scotsman