Beachy Head Review

In the first few minutes of Beachy Head, two film-makers find something chilling among the hours of footage they've recorded on the eponymous Sussex suicide spot: a man walks to the edge of the cliff, removes his jacket and boots, and steps into space. After a few seconds, one asks the other, "shall we watch it again?" It's a great moment, and captures the best qualities of this black comedy about our fascination with death.

Contacting the grieving widow, the film-makers begin planning a film which commodifies her grief with pretty lighting and an emotional soundtrack. These scenes, as the filmmakers try to impose their vision of suicide onto the sad reality, are wittily scripted and well performed; their morbid fascination with suicide contrasts well with Hannah Barker's down-to-earth pathologist. However, the play is weaker as a psychodrama about depression, and worse still as an examination of the suicidal act itself.

Some set pieces are heavy-handed, such as when Steven, the dead man, reanimates to recite his final diary entry – itself too mawkish to capture the desperation of someone about to take his own life. But there are snatches of the quality which earned this company a Fringe First award in 2007. The moment when the deceased wanders onstage, only to advise his wife to check out a dodgy light-fitting, is unexpectedly touching; so is a hopeless phonecall Steven makes to a depression helpline moments before his jump. Such moments redeem Beachy Head, even if it's not a complete success.