The town of Hyde just outside Manchester has an unfortunate reputation for being home to not one but three prolific killers.
Moors murderers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley carried out their final murder there in 1960. Almost 40 years later, Harold Shipman, a local Hyde GP was arrested and subsequently convicted of the murders of 15 elderly patients. It’s in this town around that time that Let The Bodies Pile, begins. The latest offering from renowned British playwright, Henry Naylor, takes us inside the shock, devastation and guilt so many families faced (Shipman is believed to have killed up to 250 patients) when discovering their loved ones had died at the hands of their trusted doctor.
The provocative two-hander stars Naylor as Frank, a long-suffering carer of his elderly mother, and Emily Carding, his sister who he resents for fleeing to France and has now returned to plan their mother’s funeral, amid suspicions Shipman may have been responsible for her death.
These scenes are juxtaposed with a flash forward to a care home in the grip of the COVID pandemic – the play’s title comes from words allegedly uttered by Boris Johnson as he resisted moves to send Britain into lockdown. At the heart of the shows concurrent narratives are some over-arching themes: neglect, guilt and apathy. Frank feels guilty that he allowed his mother to see Shipman on the day she died, despite the “Dr Death” rumours that surrounded him.
A care home nurse, also played by Carding, is racked with guilt for allowing a patient to die alone. In the absence of adequate PPE, she wasn’t prepared to risk her life catching a deadly virus for which, at that time, there was no vaccine.
As these two stories converge, we’re left to lament the way elderly people are treated as disposable. Naylor invites us to see parallels between Shipman playing God with people’s lives, and governments allowing the vulnerable to die during a pandemic. While the comparison feels confused and heavy-handed at times, the writing is rhythmically sharp and the performances textured and powerful. Ultimately, this is a play about the lethality of indifference, and what happens when nobody takes responsibility for caring.
Let The Bodies Pile by Henry Naylor is at Gilded Balloon Teviot (Dining Room) until 28 August.
