Dead Mum

A darkly funny, gut-punch cabaret about grief, survival, and the chaos of losing everything at 19

By Jack Francis West

Written and performed by Jack Francis West, the show began in 2021 with a self-produced, sold-out development season after a cancelled cabaret competition and a lockdown full of feelings. It turns out, people wanted to talk about grief, they just didn’t know how. So Jack made a show to force the conversation. Not just with words, but with music, humour and catharsis. Set entirely at his mother’s funeral, Dead Mum is her eulogy: a raw and theatrical unraveling told through songs, childhood journal entries, and brutally candid storytelling. With a fourpiece band dressed as funeral directors, Jack unpacks the year he turned 19. The year he lost his mum to liver cancer, fell into an abusive relationship, and had to figure out what it meant to be alive with no family left.

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.