The War on (Father) Christmas

We’re developing a sequel to the original play, so we’ve decided The Grin Reaper now refers to the universe the characters inhabit and have renamed the original to The Grin Reaper: The Bunny’s Tale.

The new play’s called The Grin Reaper: The War on (Father) Christmas. It’s part fairy tale, part metaphor of the mistreatment of front-line staff by lower level management, The War on (Father) Christmas is set 23 days after The Bunny’s Tale, the principle characters from the earlier play are summoned to Father Christmas’s North Pole conference centre for a team building exercise, but Buns & Toothy quickly go AWOL and when HR is kidnapped by Father Christmas, DEATH realises that it has a break for the first time in millennia & sets off in search of the canteen only to encounter a member of the revolutionary ELF: Elf Liberation Force that seeks to free the slaves in Santa’s factories. The elf recruits DEATH.

As they are former band mates but now enemies, DEATH then rather improbably receives an invitation to Father Christmas’s fortress for a jam session and uses its pass card to admit the ELF who proceed to help DEATH rescue HR but all is not as it seems.

The show is currently being written. An outline and drafts of about half the scenes exist. Based on how long it took to write The Bunny’s Tale a performable version should exist before the end of 2020.

Whangārei October 2020

The Grin Reaper is on at ONE ONE SIX October 16, 17 & 18. The Facebook event is here.

Why is DEATH finding Easter eggs at temporarily fatal traffic accidents? Why is there a global shortage of fairy dust? How is The Easter Bunny financing her ever growing need for eggs? Exactly why was DEATH thrown out of its band The Four Hoarsemen? Who is the sinister The Amputation Angel and what does she do with the severed limbs she buys? For that matter, what does The Tooth Fairy do with the teeth she buys?

Dark humour aplenty, mixed with lighter moments that almost immediately turn in unexpected directions as DEATH and friends tell an accessible and funny story that answers many of these questions in this romp as mythological creatures battle the conflict between their consciences and fulfilling their assigned roles but you’ll have to come to the show to discover what they are.

Caution: Not suitable for children. Any health or lifestyle advice given is only unintentionally helpful.

The Grin Reaper is a comedic play by Auckland comedian Julia Clement with additional dialogue by her wife Tessa Clement. It was initially produced in a slightly different form during the 2019 Palmerston North Comedy festival. Future productions of the show will be performed by Julia Clement, Tessa Clement & Ashes Phœnix.

The cast is now

  • Ashes Phœnix: The Tooth Fairy and HR
  • Tessa Clement: The Easter Bunny and Famine
  • Julia Clement: DEATH

We’ve made the event unticketed and koha so just show up.

The full blurb on koha is here, or the tl;dr version is: we’ll be accepting cash koha at the show, which gets a verbal “thank you” or you can deposit it to our bank account which still gets a warm “thank you” but you probably won’t hear us say it.

  • Paypal: Donation Link.
  • Bank transfer: Tessa Clement 38-9001-0456625-07

October 2020 Tour

We’ve got shows coming up in October in Hastings and Whangarei. The cast is now

  • Ashes Phoenix: The Tooth Fairy and HR
  • Tessa Clement: The Easter Bunny and Famine
  • Julia Clement: DEATH

We’ve had to modify the show a little to cater for a smaller cast, but it turned out that the changes actually made the show better. So come along & see who’s on the plate.

Show dates:

  • Hastings: October 8 & 9
  • Wangarei: October 16, 17 & 18