It is Halloween week, and many theatres are currently attempting to give their patrons a vicarious thrill as the dark nights set in.
Many of the plays on offer are one person shows, whether that be a formalised reading or re-enactment of famous (and not so famous) ghost stories, often drawn from the so-called Victorian/Edwardian “Golden Age” of supernatural story telling.
Whilst still a one hander, Dead End Job (part of the Grimfest season running across a series of London theatre/pub venues during October) offers us something a little different. Certainly, its premise is refreshingly intriguing.
Set firmly in a nondescript office of 2025, replete with desk, filing cabinet, hatstand and rubber plants, the story follows David, a rather curmudgeonly man with a huge chip on his shoulder about his failure to secure any form of professional recognition after seven years with the company. He is a man very much going through the professional motions.
His arrival is peppered with caustic comments about his colleagues, whom he holds in various stages of contempt, and the trials and tribulations of his stressful commute. So far, so very normal.
We learn about David’s hopeless, and most definitely unrequited, passion for Sarah, an HR executive whose only real contact with David was when he inadvertently catapulted a full cup of coffee into her lap during an important online meeting.
David’s continual grumbling and griping certainly does not endear him to the audience, (although he endearingly has given names to all of the office potted plants), but as time moves on, we start to see that things are not quite normal.
The office is oddly deserted for a Monday morning, the telephone rings twice with no-one at the other end. The top drawer of the filing cabinet strangely refuses to open. Lights begin to flicker, and weird, echoey whispering is occasionally heard.
Gradually, David realises that fragments of his memory have become skewed and confused. He cannot, for example, remember scribbling a note to Sarah in a book he has bought for her, yet it is clearly his handwriting. He finds a redundancy letter he cannot recall receiving, and what is the importance and purpose of an ancient book of spells and incantations which is in his backpack?
As time increasingly becomes a warped, untrustworthy concept, with slippages and unaccounted for deviations from normality, David is faced with the need to piece things together and apply some logic to an increasingly incoherent situation, where reality might not be as it seems.
As David tries, with a developing sense of paranoia, to make sense of it all, he gradually uncovers a set of circumstances and conclusions which grow darker and more chilling than he ever imagined, culminating in a horrific realisation.
Packing such content into fifty minutes is a challenge, and writer and performer Stephan Mirré does his very best.
His characterisation is authentic and believable and the cantankerousness which hides his intrinsic insecurity and self-doubt is acutely observed. Mirré takes his time to develop the scenario, and does not rush the dialogue, letting the more bizarre aspects of the situation slowly reveal itself.
However, the dénouement does not live up to the carefully constructed assemblage of curious, puzzling incidents that pepper the storyline. The final reveal feels a little rushed and overly simplistic, with too many loose ends and unresolved issues.
After being slowly but surely drawn into the beguiling escalation of disquiet and foreboding of the preceding narrative, the credibility and validity of the psychological switch required of the audience which lies at the heart of the final revelation is ultimately unsatisfying, and a trifle underwhelming.
In short, Dead End Job is an inventive piece with a number of interesting ideas which is well performed but, in its current incarnation, sadly promises more than it is able to deliver.
Review by Johnny Oxford
On a bleak Monday morning, David arrives to find the office deserted. At first, he fills the silence with his rants about annoying colleagues, stressful experiences on public transport, and his hopeless crush on his colleague from HR. But soon, strange noises echo, lights flicker, and fragments of memory refuse to align. As David tries to piece the truth back together, his stories unravel into something far darker. What horrifying secret lies hidden in the lost time?
Written and performed by Stephan Mirré
Directed by Stephan Mirré and Rory Hobson
DEAD END JOB
Bread & Roses Theatre
26 and 27 October 2025
