The Grim

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Playing until 6th December 2025

Book tickets

Photo credit: Molly Jackson-French

{PR Gifted ticket}

Undertakers Shaun (Edmund Morris, also writer) and Robert (Louis Davison) are about to begin their job to embalm and inter their next body. However, this is no ordinary corpse, it is the corpse of a vicious murderer, Jack Gallagpher (Harry Carter). To Shaun, this is just another job, but for Robert, a devout Catholic, he sees and hears something more, believing that when a soul is so evil, it lives on after the death of the body and that it is waiting for an opportune moment to return to the living realm.

This dark comedy penned by Morris is littered with banter between Shaun and Robert, with Shaun taking jabs at Robert with every opportunity, ridiculing Robert’s superstition and diverting the topic of conversation to whatever he fancies. This desire for control highlights the fact that he is the owner of the business and that while Robert is a co-worker, he is also an employee. Morris and Davison have excellent chemistry, bouncing off each other’s dialogue seamlessly to keep up with the pace and energy throughout the show.

Despite the sound of workplace dominance for the alpha position, the toing and froing between these two characters are far from anything serious and are more akin to children’s bickering on a school playground. This is especially highlighted when Shaun shows explicit jealousy over the fact that Robert had had some sweets on the way to work without him and retaliates by not offering his own sweets in return. While appreciate the humour, the story gets a little lost and starts to drag amongst attempts to capitalise on the jokes of every line, dampening the tension required towards the end of the first Act. However, what the show lacked in a narrative build up, it was compensated by a classic flickering of lights and eerie sound by Joe Hawkings and Fergus Carver, respectively, which helped to set the scene for the perfect jump scare.

Joining the stage in Act II, Carter’s Jack takes commands of the morgue with his violent outbreaks and physically exudes danger, making Shaun’s initial attempts to exert dominance look like a child’s play. From here on, there is an excessive level of banging and shouting, with Jack frequently slamming a hammer on a metal table, pulling the audience away from observing how the two undertakers respond to Jack’s presence and the story that he tells. While I appreciate that the script calls for a daunting figure, what transpired was more of a distracting experience.

To keep up with the pace of the story, the script covers a lot of ground in the final ten to fifteen minutes, with the stage descending into chaos with shouting and violence, but not really painting a very clear picture as it attempts to wrap everything up, which really is the final nail in the coffin for this show.

Creatives

Writer: Edmund Morris

Director: Ben Woodhall

Stage manager and Lighting designer: Joe Hawkings

Sound designer: Fergus Carver

Costume and props: Hiba Medina

Set and props: Ali Day