Gently directed by Ria Parry, this is a queer romcom of glorious, unbridled joy which makes the whole room giddy and sweeps us all up in the heady delight of new love … until the feeling of snug safety is cut through with a deep, cascading grief. Built from bright-eyed humour and raucous folk songs, A Gig for Ghosts is a gorgeously tender, quiet story of love and death.
It is a musical tale of two lost and lonely women meeting in London, told by a trio of open-hearted performances. Amy (Hanora Kamen, on guitar) is cynical, hardened by her time in the city. Lily (Rori Hawthorn, on fiddle), recently arrived and still barely unpacked, tumbles over herself with excitement. Lily, as a temp, navigates an existence of impermanence. Amy deals in death: when someone dies with no one to notice they’re gone, the body can lie in wait for months. But when the absence or smell is eventually noticed, it is Amy who organises the collection of the corpse. When Lily’s and Amy’s lives collide, we fall for them just as quickly as they fall for each other.
