Camden Fringe 2026
Please Don’t Die?
Martia Dimmer
Genre: Contemporary, Fringe Theatre, Theatre
Venue: Camden People's Theatre
Festival: Camden Fringe
Low Down
Funny, tender, and chaotically musical, Please Don’t Die? is a one-woman show about relationships, denial, and the delicate balance of being there at the end.
Please Don’t Die? is a newly revised iteration of Martia Dimmer’s 2024 Edinburgh Fringe production. This poignant, humorous, and warm piece exudes enticing intimacy the moment the keys are pressed for the opening piano solo.
Review
Written and performed by Martia Dimmer
Directed by Cece Walker
Dimmer puts her Mountview training to good use in a script that is delicately constructed yet deeply caring in its treatment of its subject, performed with just the right amount of tickling humour. The fourth wall is broken at deftly chosen moments, but without stepping into or chafing against the audience’s comfort zone. The writing is delicate, the songs are gentle and amusing, ranging from delightfully awkward silliness to poignantly beckoning. Despite the challenging theme, we are not left wincing, and are gently guided through the piece with grace, as are Evie’s (Dimmer) clients.
After the death of a close friend, twenty-two-year-old Evie appoints herself a trainee death doula at her cousin’s eccentric Death Café, guiding strangers through their final days with music, glitter, and questionable advice. But as she plans “perfect” deaths for others, Evie discovers that grief doesn’t follow a script—and neither does dying.
Walker’s direction has encouraged an understated performance, which is all the more powerful for it. Each character becomes immediately “visible” with the subtlest and most delicate of cues such as a soft antique-shop-style doorbell announcing clients, or a change in vocal pitch. We know precisely who we are listening to without forced or exaggerated changes. We don’t seem to be experiencing a performance at all, but rather meeting a slew of Joyce Grenfell-esque characters as they join us in the room. It was easy to believe that Martia becomes rather than performs Evie. Not having known quite what to expect from the descriptions seen, this reviewer was immediately captivated when presented with Cher, a Ukelele and glottal vibrato. What more could anyone ask?
Everything is pitched at just the right, carefully considered level, avoiding caricatures. Even the lighting states change from cool blues when we are in a hospital room and warm pinks in the Death Cafe. This plays its part in quietly informing us of where we are. As we segue between the settings, we are never jolted from potentially upsetting, serious moments by humour and abruptly into reflection, but rather we are considerately led, as only a fully-fledged death doula can.
