» Review: This Is Tales Of The Afterlives
A series of short, sharply written and wryly monumental stories about what happens when we die, David Eagleman’s Sum: 40 Tales Of The Afterlives was one of the cult hits of 2009 (Canongate have just brought out an audio version featuring the likes of Nick Cave and Jarvis Cocker). And in Brian Eno’s exclusive Brighton Festival staging, the author and neuroscientist himself took to the stage – one of 12 readers sat at isolated desks on the Dome stage as if in a sort of purgatorial classroom. Auditioned from community volunteers, the readers varied in skill. Jimmy Cairney of The Bobby McGees did brilliantly with the saddest of the pack, Metamorphosis, in which we all die twice – once corporeally, and once when our name is spoken for the last time on earth. Eno’s omnipresent electro noodling provided a vaguely ominous sound bed, but the thin live concept, fleshed out by an admirably inclusive spirit, was no match to simply reading the book.
Concert Hall, Brighton Dome
3/5
Bella Todd
