“The most high-profile director you’ve never heard of.” That’s what the Stage newspaper called Adam Brace late last year, after an annus mirabilis in which he seemingly worked on every great performance I watched. Liz Kingsman’s breakout hit One-Woman Show – that pitch-perfect parody of the Fleabag phenomenon – was one. Haley McGee’s for-the-ages solo show about the shape of our lives, Age Is a Feeling, was another. Throw in Leo Reich’s blazing standup debut, Sh!t Theatre’s Evita Too – and the London revival of Alex Edelman’s off-Broadway hit Just for Us – and you’ve got a man who took the idea of the magic touch to stratospheric levels.
This, then, was a director-dramaturg with the world at his feet, and his death at the age of 43 is a colossal loss. In that Venn diagram where creative comedy meets compelling theatre – where, let’s face it, all the best work is made – his name on the credits was a gold standard. All the more remarkable to think that he came late to his twin passions, directing and dramaturgy, after a perfectly successful initial stint as a playwright. His play Stovepipe was co-produced by the Bush and the National Theatre; its follow-up (his last), They Drink It in the Congo, had a run at the Almeida.
But his heart wasn’t in playwriting. He found his calling in the associate dramaturg, and later associate director, role at Soho theatre. I knew Adam through my work at Camden People’s theatre. He was a regular and well-loved visitor there, primarily in his role as long-term collaborator with those excellent alt.theatre gadflies Sh!t Theatre. A great friend to our theatre, Adam would also keep a weather eye out for new artists and projects at CPT to take under his wing. One such was Age Is a Feeling, which Adam helped Haley McGee develop, over three years, from a 15-minute idea to a profoundly wise and moving show that continues to stir audiences in its repeated Soho theatre revivals.
With my comedy critic hat on, I soon realised that Adam’s involvement in a show signalled something worth watching. The role of the director in standup comedy is moot: some think it’s unnecessary. He described his contribution as “hardcore dramaturgy”: helping standups work out what they had to say and how; structuring their shows for maximum (narrative, dramatic, comic) effectiveness. He was very good at it, as you’ll know if you’ve watched recent outstanding work by the likes of Alfie Brown, Jessie Cave or Ahir Shah – award-hogging comics all, to whose work Brace made unshowy but indispensable contributions.
The modesty was characteristic; so too his rigour, and his thoughtfulness. A conversation with Adam about standup and performance, at the Soho theatre bar or some nocturnal dive on the Edinburgh fringe, was always detailed, insightful – and fun. Adam was a lovely man, assiduous in ascribing credit where it was due, full of care for the artists he worked with. His death is such a shock. I marvel to think what he’d have gone on to achieve, and mourn all the great shows we won’t now get – or the good ones we’ll get that, with his input, would have been great. More than that, I mourn a gifted and gentle man who, across the worlds of theatre and comedy, affected many lives and careers for the better.
