“I’m not going to die happy, I’m going to die really fucking angry and I want people on Radio 4 to hear all about it.”

Zara is dying. But she’s not about to go out without making some noise.

At seventeen, with a terminal diagnosis and a very limited tolerance for nonsense, she has one final project: record her own eulogy, in her own words, before her brain tumour makes that impossible. Funny, angry, and absolutely unwilling to be reduced to her illness, Zara is the last person who needs saving.

Stuart thinks he’s there to help. He’s good at helping - he’s built a career out of it, a quiet, careful life of service that keeps his own grief at a comfortable distance. But Zara doesn’t need managing. She needs witnessing. And that’s something Stuart has never quite learned to do.

Before I’m Dead is a tender two-hander that asks what it really means to see another human being: not the polished performance they present to the world, but the real, inconvenient, luminous truth of them. It shows us that, surprising as they may be, connections are the greatest form of bravery in the face of mortality.

Written by James Rushbrooke

Directed by Oliver Savage

Cast TBA

Produced by Eleanor Shaw

BEFORE I’M DEAD is the VCA Playwriting Award winner 2026.