Review: CURATING at The Old Red Lion

Date: 10th November 2025

Stars: 3

The afterlife, as it turns out, isn’t harps and halos. It’s forms, folders, and a printer that only works when it feels like it. Helen Cunningham’s Curating, directed by Nikoletta Soumelidis, imagines the next world as an office – the kind with rules, red tape and very little divine intervention. It’s a funny and surprisingly human take on eternity, where death comes with paperwork and everyone’s still waiting for someone else to sign things off.

Freya wakes up dead and finds herself in a sort of celestial admin hub, trying to make sense of what she’s supposed to be doing and why she’s there at all. Her guide – a ‘curator’ of souls – handles her case with the weary politeness of someone who’s processed far too many new arrivals. Also in the office is John, a taxidermist from 1898, which adds a strange and intriguing layer, not because he’s been there longer, but because they seem to exist in the same space from entirely different times. It’s an idea the play touches on but never fully explores, and that sense of mystery lingers nicely.

The concept is great: the idea that bureaucracy doesn’t stop when life does. There’s a dry wit that runs through the whole piece, from the back-and-forth over forms to the familiar absurdity of trying to get a printer to obey. It’s part existential comedy, part workplace farce, and it works best when it plays into that mix.

The writing is sharp and the performances are engaging, though the play sometimes skims the surface of its own ideas. The opening scene hints at a time-loop structure that never quite materialises, and while the repeated question “Are you okay?” lands as a kind of haunting refrain, it might hit harder if the script dug a little deeper into what that really means.

Still, Curating has a strong voice and a memorable premise. It finds humour in the mundanity of the afterlife, and warmth in the idea that even beyond death, everyone’s just trying to get through the day.