Writer: Agnieszka Wieclawska

Director: Keller O’Malley

In this cheerful comedy, Leta has a superpower, quite a good one, in fact. She can’t die. Or rather, she can die but comes back to life a few hours later, by which time she’s usually lying in a morgue somewhere. She dies a lot because someone is trying to kill her. Dying To Meet You is a rom-com with corpses.

Tess is Leta’s girlfriend, who, while waiting for Leta to escape from the morgue, cooks Bolognese. We discover that she is immortal, too. In the show’s early minutes, it seems as if writer Agnieszka Wieclawska is using the theme of resurrection as a way of discussing the fact that in spite of the violence against queer people in the world, queer people will continue to exist. However, as it turns out, Dying To Meet You is not a political play at all. Instead, it’s broad comedy with some meta bits thrown in for good measure.

The clownish comedy that runs through the whole of the 55-minute piece doesn’t always work as it should. Sometimes, there’s something too forced about the running around, the funny accents and the cheeky looks to the audience. And the tenor of the piece never changes, whether Leta is breaking out of her temporary drawer in the morgue, dodging bullets in a slow food restaurant or fighting her nemesis in an aeroplane hangar. When the five-strong cast are chasing each other in this last scene, the audience is fearful that Benny Hill music will suddenly erupt from the speakers. It doesn’t, but unfortunately the tune that does come is more or less the same.

There’s something quite film noirish about the plot, and it would be good if Wieclawska and director Keller O’Malley could lean into this darker side in the future. The comedy could then be wry rather than silly. But the actors are fully committed to showing off their clownish selves, especially Hannah Whyman with her range of accents, who, with Maeve Elmore and Olivia von Opel, dashes around the theatre, exiting and entering as if they are in a farce. Playing the leads are Wieclawska as Tess and Sarah Chamberlain as Leta. They both convince as the two lovers trying to find out the identity of their persistent killers.

It’s all very entertaining in a light-hearted way, but in a Fringe full of shows about masculinity, women’s rights, historical figures and grief, Dying To Meet You doesn’t feel that deep. Although some will welcome the slapstick as a tonic.

Runs until 23 August 2026

Camden Fringe 2026 runs until 30 August

The Reviews Hub Star Rating