The world premiere of an exotic and darkly comic new play from playwright, actor and novelist Nigel Planer

Finborough Theatre

"Here where the living eat the dead, the dead may eat the living too. Their spirits are all around us now, carved in the rock, in the shells, in the trunk of the Pandanu ree..."

Deep in the polynesian island of the Pacific Ocean, hungry spirits circle the homes of writer Robert Louis Stevenson and artist Paul Gauguin.

The path to Stevenson's grave, his 'Road to Paradise', is complete; he can pass on anytime he likes. But, having spent thirty years in rigorous combat with the grim reaper, is he finally ready to concede defeat? His islander maid, Java is terrified his spirit will get waylaid on its journey back to Edinburgh and stay to devour her soul.

Gauguin too, is ready - he has bought rum, arsenic and morphine for his sucide cocktail and is certain he's not long for this world. It seemed easy enough to avoid being arrested by the gendarme, but he'll be damned if they give him a Catholic burial in consecrated ground.

Set in the strange and supernatural surroundings of Samoa and Tahiti, Death of Long Pig explores the duality of experience from the perspectives  of two great artists as they usher death into their island homes. As the final hour approaches, they face the eternal question: is it how we prepare for death that really governs the way we live?

Playwright, novelist and actor Nigel Planer was co-founder of London's Comedy Store and Comic Strip clubs and went on to star in the TV classics The Young Ones and The Comic Strip Presents as well as countless other TV and fim productions including Shine on Harvey Moon and The Grimleys. His books include two novels - The Right Man and Faking It, as well as the best-selling A Good Enough Dad, and the spoof theatrical biography I, An Actor (with Christopher Douglas). After appearing at the Birmingham Writers' festival in 1996, he toured the country as a performance poet and published the short collection of poetry Unlike the Buddha as well as regularly contributing to The Guardian poetry spot in the 1990s. His first play, On the Ceiling opened at the Birmingham Rep and transferred to the Garrick Theatre in 2004. More recently, it was revived at the Landor Theatre and will be a Saturday night play on Radio 4 in February 2009 starring Phil Daniels. As an actor, Nigel has worked on numerous new plays in theatres such as the Hampstead, Young Vic, King's Head, The Traverse and the Bush, and is also an unlikely West End musical star, having played in the original London Companies of Wicked, We Will Rock You, Chicago and Evita (1978), as well as appearing in the smash hit political satire Feelgood by Alastair Beaton in 2001.