Beautiful People Theatre & Performing Arts

In an age where death and grieving are being medicalised out of existence, Beautiful People strives to reclaim humankind’s last taboo.

Libidinous centenarians Violet, Norman and Arthur are doomed to enact a slomo ballet of sadness. Amid fumbling, daily rounds of coffee, call centres and cat food, their rants, dribbles, pills and cough bombs litter an ambling blend of
symbolist mysticism and synesthesia that has the fear of an ageing world population in its sights. It oozes with the relentless positivity of elderhood and good deaths.

For Beautiful People we have imagined our 120-year-old selves, shadowed palliative care workers, liaised with the Festivals of Death and Dying, attended and ran death cafés where people talk about death over tea and cake, and trawled our own grief memories for material. David’s dad died and if he had any last words while riding his vintage motorbike around Loch Ness, they would have been – Keep Going!

Beautiful People is the final part of Ridiculusmus’ trilogy of works transforming complex mental health issues into witty and accessible theatre.

“first sad, then funny and then sadder still. The bawdy humour prompts giddy – or is it guilty? – laughter. Brilliant skits .. as thoughtless as they are thoughtful, pity and laughter rise up as one” – The Guardian.

“We’re still laughing. It still feels cruel, somehow, we are implicated… These two performers, Haynes and Woods, who for the past quarter century, have created some of the most interesting and provocative comic theatre I’ve seen.” – Witness Performance.

Beautiful People is an exemplary reminder that the highest accolades we give to comedy are couched in the language of pain. Bloody Magisterial. – The Age / Sydney Morning Herald.

A sharp physical pain in the heart – Stage Door.

Incredibly funny – Exeunt.

Dangerously funny, scatological, surreal, clever and ultimately powerfully humane, it is the finest show I have seen on this year’s fringe. – Mark Brown, The Sunday Herald.

Age 11+

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