Writer: John Swale<\/b><\/p>\n
Concocted by compulsive surrealist punster John Swale and his event-making collective Mother Wolf, The Immortalitea Party brings endearingly hand-crafted fun, games, decomposition, funereal foodstuffs, audience workouts and singing eels to the potentially humdrum business of taking tea and tidbits.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all in aid of London Month of the Dead, a packed programme of walks, talks, taxidermy and s\u00e9ances supporting the city\u2019s Magnificent Seven Cemeteries: enchanting green spaces much in need of charitable shoring up.<\/p>\n
In his tattered dog collar and tall Puritan hat, wispy, \u201960s style troubadour Swale cuts a dashing yet dishevelled figure as \u2018exquisite corpse\u2019 Pastor Whey, the guitar-toting MC. He\u2019s unique but displays shades of Johnny Depp, Keith Richards and Bill Bailey, with a Harry Hill-like voice: manic yet reassuring.<\/p>\n
At the outset, audience members are handed a customisable Order of Service for their own funerals. Pastor Whey is, in effect, delivering a rambling end-of-life sermon studded with cabaret performances spanning puppetry, songs, poems, painting, and outright swearing. \u201cCongrats! You\u2019ve all now died\u2026 here in the hinterland of salvation and salivation, you must now choose between immortality and good ol\u2019 fashioned dying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Successive characters highlight key existential themes. Charon the Boatwoman is the stroppiest, a smoking, over-accessorised teen from out in the Styx that sulkily dishes out coins and advice: \u201cA word to the wise: most ferrymen don\u2019t go south of the river, but I go all the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her acidity is balanced out by sweet Memento Maureen, an obliging maid with a feather duster (for sweeping up ashes) who brings round the tea and biscuits\u2026 or rather, Misfortune Cookies, in return for Charon\u2019s coins, containing gnomic lines for her to interpret further. \u201cLife\u2019s too shortbread!\u201d says one. \u201cYou can\u2019t Jammy Dodger death, babes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fervent audience teapot rubbing brings on His Earl Greyness the Tea Genie, in a necklace of spoons and mini tea party turban. He, too, can read fortunes, depending on the choice of brew. He greets \u201cI demand Dali-jeeling!\u201d with: \u201cYou\u2019ll meet your end in the desert, melting while supported by wooden struts.\u201d There\u2019s an amusing turn from Elvers Presley, the quiffy sock puppet eel with a spangly duo of backing vocalists, singing Bermuda Love Triangle to demonstrate mating rituals and the slurpy circle of life.<\/p>\n
Mycelium Gallagher lopes about aggressively in his Liberty Kappa hoodie and mushroom hat, singing \u2018Champignon Supernova\u2019: \u201cWhere were you when we were getting hyphae?\u201d Swale\u2019s take? \u201cHe\u2019s the best thing in rock \u2018n\u2019 roll since Sisyphus.\u201d Mouldy face-masked \u2018artist in putrescence\u2019 Bob Rott paints a creditable audience member portrait on a coffin lid, then decomposes it: \u201cDesiccation. Gauntness. Distension. Rupture. Be careful what you volunteer for.\u201d Swale enjoys rabble-rousing in between acts with call-and-response, the likes of: \u201cWhen I say living, you say dead, when I say Sylvia, you say Ted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chef-hatted Human Remainsley Harriott introduces the night\u2019s delicacies: Mushroom Turnover In Your\u00a0 Graves (deep, rich sauce; light vegan puff pastry), pleasantly cushiony, slimy, savoury Okra Winfrey fritters (\u201cYou get a fritter\u2026 you get a fritter\u2026 you all get a fritter!\u201d), and chocolate-dipped Dates with Death. Sensibly, this is quick, grabby food that doesn\u2019t need cutlery or crockery, just paper napkins. It\u2019s genuinely tasty, and nowhere near as unpleasantly gimmicky as it might have been.<\/p>\n
Pastor Whey returns to the stage in the second half to introduce another slew of acts, including rooster-headed poet John Cooper Cluck, who angrily recites \u2018Chicken my Privilege\u2019, and saucy singing sandcastle spades Sandy and Doug: \u201cYou could give me Beachy Head.\u201d The audience is encouraged to reveal their own \u2018Oglitchuaries\u2019 (aided by prompts on the Order of Service), and the show\u2019s rounded off by choreographer Dan Z. Pulcha in starry Elton John sunglasses, exhorting the audience to take part in a workout video featuring vigorous mortal coil-shuffling and daisy up-pushing.<\/p>\n
Groaning with puns and loaded with mirth, The Immortalitea Party is a delectable treat that slips down with ease. There\u2019s absolutely nothing off-puttingly slick from any cast member: they\u2019re all just great at offhandedly, effortlessly sharing the fun they\u2019re having. Hugely inventive, in Mighty Boosh vein, the show is a real labour of love that could do with a longer outing than a single night, although much of the material should bear mulching down into other projects.<\/p>\n
All the players \u2013 even Charon, for all her sniping, and the plastic sandcastle spades \u2013 are likeable and fun to spend time with, generating a warm, welcoming atmosphere. Special mention must go to the pianist with a gunshot wound to the head who manages the gamut of audience-requested musical styles from classical to death metal with consummate skill.<\/p>\n
Maybe the only elements lacking in the piece, billed as \u2018surreal\u2019, are moments of real horror and weirdness, although perhaps there\u2019s just nothing left these days that\u2019ll leave an audience in shock. The show\u2019s timekeeping was a little slack \u2013 over 45 minutes late to start, imperilling last train journeys \u2013 but at least the one a.m. late finish is flagged.<\/p>\n
One of the things The Immortalitea Party achieves most effectively is showcasing the prodigious talents of Mother Wolf, who are exceptionally good at making spectacles of themselves. Keep a \u2013 sliced \u2013 eye out for them.<\/p>\n
Reviewed on 10 October 2025<\/b><\/p>\n
\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating <\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t90%<\/p>\n
\t\t\tDelectable punning cabaret<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer: John Swale Concocted by compulsive surrealist punster John Swale and his event-making collective Mother Wolf, The Immortalitea…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,163824,163825,163826,257,163827,163828,163829,163830,6080,163831,154384,2764,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-498864","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-immortalitea-party","12":"tag-jamal-hasan","13":"tag-john-swale","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-london-month-of-the-dead","16":"tag-mother-wolf","17":"tag-past-present-future-and-hereafter","18":"tag-rebecca-reynolds","19":"tag-review","20":"tag-spike-zephaniah","21":"tag-the-others","22":"tag-theatre","23":"tag-uk","24":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115372712807900083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}