The Covid Requiem
My big brother Tony died just before the first lockdown.
It was hard for us to be with him, because he was in Reading, and I was in Edinburgh, and his twin brother was in Cornwall,
But it was important to try, and all the more important to give him a good funeral once he had gone.
He’d wanted a horse drawn hearse, and it was so good to give him one.
I was asked to speak the eulogy, which wasn’t easy, because our relationship hadn’t always been either, but the effort of getting his story right and then telling it as best I could really mattered.
There were quite a few times during his last illness when he had to put into a coma to allow the ventilator to help him, and at these times it was so important just to be with him and to hold his hand.
And so when a couple of months after his death the pandemic broke out and people began dying in hospital without their loved ones being with them, it just seemed so terribly cruel.
And also cruel that funerals couldn’t be properly held afterwards, and so people were not able to properly mourn.
Loved ones’ stories could not be told: their lives could not be heard.
It all added a new dimension to the suffering of the bereaved.
But then there was also the suffering of the medical staff, put under intolerable strain; and also all the other unsung heroes of the pandemic: the binmen, the delivery people, the shopkeepers… everyone who kept life going in the midst of it all, often at great risk to themselves.
All this needs to be recognised; and this burden of grief needs to be addressed.
It’s all been made much worse by what we know of the incompetence, the cronyism, and the corruption of the Westminster government.
And it’s because of that, I imagine, and the reluctance to publicly acknowledge these failures, that there hasn’t been any serious official attempt to acknowledge and to mourn.
But there needs to be.
All the research shows that covid bereavement has had serious long terms effects on tens of thousands of people
For some years now, I’ve strongly believed that theatre has an important role to play in healing. And that’s why I wanted to create a Covid Requiem.
And that’s why I’m so grateful to Elizabeth Newman, of Pitlochry Theatre, for commissioning me to do this.
Of course I didn’t know how to do it; but in Lesley Orr, Elizabeth found me the perfect collaborator.
And the woods of the Discovery Garden behind the theatre made the perfect setting; and Duncan Chisholm created the perfect music.
Patsy Reid and Innes watson played Duncan’s music, and me and Lesley spoke the words as we walked with the audience through the autumn woods.
How beautiful it was.
How lucky I am to have been able to do it.
But the need hasn’t gone away.
It won’t do just to pretend it all hasn’t happened and then try to move on.
There are lessons to be learned, and our society is so reluctant to learn them.
And, above all, people are still suffering.
There need to be collective acts of mourning.
So it’s been very wonderful to bring St. Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral and the Traverse Theatre together to re-create the Covid Requiem this coming Thursday and friday.
And what a joy to work with the cathedral’s amazingly beautiful choir as they sing Faure’s Requiem.
Our theatre has its origins in religion and in ritual; so it makes such perfect sense for the theatre and the church to come together in this moment of very special need.
I hope and trust something very special will happen.
PS We will be reading out the names of audience members’ deceased relatives in the course of the event.
Whether you can attend or not, if there is someone you lost whose name you would like to have read out, the drop me a line and I will do what I can.
Just click this button:
And if you could also share a sentence about them, that would be great.
PPS Tickets are available here:
https://www.traverse.co.uk/whats-on/event/the-covid-requiem
Lesley and myself will be talking about the event tomorrow, Sunday 5th, on Radio Scotland at about 8.45 on “Sunday Morning”.