BACKSTAGE AT FRINGE with Jack Francis West | Dead Mum

In today's 'Backstage at Fringe', we spoke to Jack Francis West, Writer and Performer of Dead Mum, which opens on September 30 at Explosives Factory as a part of our Fringe 2025 season.

A darkly funny, gut-punch cabaret about grief, survival, and the chaos of losing everything at 19. Inspired by Fleabag, Bo Burnham’s Make Happy, and Baby Reindeer, the show veers wildly between hilarity and heartbreak. The first half disarms with comedy. The second half hits you where it hurts. Because at its core, Dead Mum believes that comedy earns tragedy. Dead Mum isn’t about performing pain, it’s about making space for it. It’s about connection through grief instead of isolation. And by the end, maybe we all walk out feeling a little less alone.

Q: Take us back to the start. When did this show first drop into your head? How did it get to where it is now?

The show started when my mum got kicked in the head by a horse and died. Just kidding, it was just cancer. At first, I honestly thought it would just be a weird little uni project that lived and died in a three-night run. But when I did that first development season in 2020, and the subsequent 2022 Fringe season, the response was kind of wild. People laughed, duh. But they cried!

And more than that, people I knew, people I never met, would come up to me afterwards with their own stories about grief. Thanking me for allowing them a safe space to feel some kind of catharsis, through dumb jokes and gay stories, that made them feel a little less alone. That made me realise that this show had a power that was worth pursuing. Because people needed it, and I love performing it. For my Mum, for myself, but mainly for the audience.

Q: What will audiences find in your show that they won't find anywhere else in fringe?

A true story, comedy cabaret about death! It’s a topic we generally avoid as a society, which is crazy to me since it's probably the most universal experience of being human. And while a lot of art is about death, our show is unique because well, for one I’m really funny. And more so, the atmosphere is a very unique one. It’s a show that makes you laugh before you cry. I’m obsessed with the science of comedy as an artform, and as a medium used to connect to something deeper. An audience is invited to laugh, to feel comfortable, to care about me and my story and see themselves in it. To see their own grief, reflected back at them. That combo is really hard to capture, but the show works, and it’s incredibly cathartic.

Q: What will surprise audiences about this work?

That it’s not depressing! Yes, it’s sad but like I said, it’s funny. People hear “dead mum show” and assume they’re going to sit in a funeral for an hour. But it’s not that; it’s messy and funny and hopeful. I think people are surprised at the tone of the show, the whiplash between comedy and tragedy, and how safe they feel to reflect on their own losses without it being too heavy or scary.

Q: You're on a blind date. Nervously, you walk into the bar. Across the smoke and pool tables you see them - there they are. Your exact target audience member, personified. Can you describe them?

Dead Mum Club. They’ve lost a parent, they can relate and they want to laugh about it. They want to see those unspoken nuances of death and grief portrayed on stage. But also, it could just be anyone! The show is about death, after all. Something we will all experience. The show explores its inevitability, its contours and strangeness. I think anyone would value the chance to connect with those feelings for an hour, in a safe and fun way and maybe walk away feeling a little lighter.

Q: What has been the most memorable moment in your process to this point? 

I think it would be the realisation of what the show can do. It doesn’t matter if I, personally, am having an emotional breakthrough on stage. Just speaking the words, telling the story, bringing light to what is usually kept in the darkness - it’s like a spell. I’ve had people cry in my arms afterwards, about their own dead mums, about their own grief in general and thanked me for creating such a safe space for them to let those feelings breathe, even if it’s just for a night, guided by a stupid gay guy with a microphone.

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Dead Mum plays at Explosives Factory from September 30 - October 4. Stay tuned to the Theatre Works Backstage Blog, where we have loads more Backstage at Fringe content on the way!

Click here to get your tickets!