The Grand Gesture

A new reworking of Nikolai Erdman’s classic comic masterpiece The Suicide from the graduating students at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Unemployed Simeon Duff lives with wife Mary and mother-in-law Sadie in a dingy boarding house. Depressed and humiliated by his reliance on his wife’s wages to scrape by, Simeon announces that he is going to kill himself.

Desperate, Mary seeks help from their grubby Rigsby-esque landlord who tries to convince Simeon that life is beautiful and worth clinging on to.

As word spreads among the locals about what Simeon is planning to do, the vultures begin to circle. One by one, a string of grotesque characters, who would not be out of place in The League of Gentlemen, visit Simeon in the hope of turning his suicide into a grand and noble gesture that will further their own particular cause.

Premiered by Northern Broadsides in 2013, The Grand Gesture toured nationally to great critical acclaim. We look forward to seeing the next generation of theatre makers and performers bring it to our Factory Theatre stage.

Age recommendation: 14 and over.