When Oliver Emanuel was taken by brain cancer at 43, one friend observed that the playwright had “taught us how to die”. By all accounts, Emanuel lived his final months with humour and pragmatism. What is curious is how much of the substantial body of work he left behind is preoccupied by grief. In plays such as Dragon and I Am Tiger, he returned to it repeatedly.
Thus it is with this posthumous chamber musical, although at first it does not seem so. Written with Gareth Williams, whose piano ballads are a lively mix of the heartfelt and wry, it begins as a love story told through the medium of paper. With every ticket, menu, shopping list, letter and origami bird comes a staging post in the romance between neighbours, one a jilted lover (Christopher Jordan-Marshall), the other a go-ahead journalist (Emma Mullen).
