Outside the Box – A Live Show About Death

Fear, wrote Frank Herbert, is "the little death", and there are few terrors more paralysing than death's inevitability. Liz Rothschild—performer, celebrant and green burial-site manager—aims to replace as much of that fear as she can with laughter and reflection. The surprisingly successful result is a resolutely unmorbid show themed entirely around morbidity.

The structure of Rothschild's one-person performance is conventional—a mixture of observation, education and anecdote—but this does not denote a lack of imagination; instead it serves to reinforce just how familiar death is to us all. Arguably, Rothschild's cheerful meditation occupies the periphery of the largely American 'death positive' scene, which also encourages greater openness and honesty about the realities of mortality. But it lacks that community's often confrontational style and aesthetic fascination with death-inspired art. Rothschild, by contrast, is so sunny and diplomatic you could almost imagine the show being performed for primary school pupils (which might not be the worst idea in the world).

Importantly, Rothschild proceeds with the awareness that all present have their own personal, unavoidable relationships with death, and never shows anything less than complete respect for her audience, or the effect her chosen subject might have on them. Occasionally this can make the show seem a little over-cautious and unadventurous, but walking on eggshells while trying to win people over to life's grim punchline is a tall order. Rothschild is an engaging and amply qualified storyteller, whose passion never faulters and whose questions are worth considering.