YORK actor and director Andy Love's Wildgoose Theatre will present the York premiere of Laura Wade’s Colder Than Here at Friargate Theatre, Lower Friargate, from October 18 to 21.

"Death is the ultimate fact of life, but in an age when many of us might prefer to see death as an optional extra, Wade’s play is a timely wake-up call," says Love.

"Wife and mother of two Myra has no choice but to face this fact. She is suffering with terminal bone cancer and is determined to die on her own terms, so pathos is to be expected, though you might not expect a play about a painful death to be so funny."

In the same way that Myra has organised her life, so she organises her death, checking out potential burial plots and making funeral plans. As she points out: "You have to find things to do. When you’re off work with dying."

Meanwhile, Myra’s husband, Alec, is struggling to fix the boiler – "I can’t really do problems," he says – and daughters Harriet and Jenna are dealing with their mother’s illness in very different ways but have their own issues to confront too. "This is a family which has never had, and may never acquire, 'this fully-functioning talking thing'," says Love.

"Colder Than Here is an unsentimental play of love, death and grief, which ‘balances raw emotion with a deliciously delicate black humour'. It's about control, cardboard coffins and woodland burials; it’s about a family’s preparation for the inevitable and the conversations which many of us dread."

Directed by Louise Larkinson, the cast comprises Wildgoose regular Claire Morley as daughter Jenna, Sophie Buckley as her sister, Harriet, John Lister as their father, Alec, and Beryl Nairn as wife and mother Myra.

Playwright Laura Wade, who was named on the 2015 BAFTA Breakthrough Brits list, says of her 2005 play: "I like the idea of trying to make friends with death. It is, after all, such a big part of our lives, but we barely acknowledge it."

Colder Than Here was first performed at London’s Soho Theatre and, 13 years later, Wildgoose Theatre's production will be its first in York. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances on October 18 to 20 and 2.30pm matinees on October 20 and 21 are on sale at £12, concessions £10, on 01904 613000 or at

ridinglights.org/colder-than-here/

Charles Hutchinson