Covid: Lockdown death prompts artist's show about grief

An artist whose uncle died during lockdown has made a show with other bereaved people about the importance of music and ritual during grief.

More than 179,000 people have died with Covid in the UK but restrictions meant many were not given the funeral they may have wanted.

Gavin Porter, from Butetown in Cardiff, was one of just 10 people at his relative's funeral.

He said his National Theatre Wales show had been an outlet for his grief.

"My uncle passed away during the height of the pandemic... I felt that we never really gave him the send-off that he deserved, it never felt like that moment in time had been marked," he said.

Cardiff's ethnically diverse dockland community Butetown is well known for its colourful funeral processions, which sometimes include hundreds of mourners and steel bands, something not possible during the Covid pandemic.

"It made me realise the importance of ceremony in human existence really, how we mark a moment in time and are able to move on to a next moment in time," he said.

"I never really felt that, in an odd way, his life was concluded, if that makes sense."

He decided to start conversations with other bereaved people by asking them what songs they would like played at their own funeral and what songs they had chosen for their loved ones.

The result is Circle of Fifths, which is billed as an immersive experience that combines film, music and theatre to create a live documentary performance.

Naomi Chiffi from Tenby, Pembrokeshire, is one of several people Porter interviewed for inclusion in the show after she lost both her father and cousin to suicide.

"Losing someone to suicide is a different kind of grief, you have to compartmentalise the grief a little bit," she said.

"If you try and deal with the fact that they've gone and they chose to do it all at once it's almost too much."

She said music had played a big part in her grief, particularly at her cousin's funeral.

"He had made really clear instructions in his letter about what he wanted that funeral to be and how he wanted himself to be remembered," she said.

"He requested at the end of the service they should play Tender by Blur, which is quite a big anthemic song, and that he wanted everyone to sing along to it.

"And so the whole place, and there were hundreds of people there, just erupted in song... 'love's the greatest thing that we have' and not one person was crying, everyone was just hugging each other, arms around each other, swaying back and fore, looking at each other and just holding on to each other with love and it was amazing."

She said the experience taught her an important lesson: "The importance of giving out love... despite the horrible things that people go through the only thing that really matters is love.

"Once you die or when you lose somebody the love never goes away does it. That's the only thing that's everlasting."

Justin Teddy Cliffe from Newport lost his brother in a freak accident when a tree fell on him.

"There's nothing you can do about it and no-one saw it coming," he said.

"You've got to live the rest of your life just dealing with the consequences of what happened because of that one second... complete chance, bad fortune, bad luck."

He said his brother's funeral was "crazy".

"Too many people for the church, spilling out into the car park, the whole village had basically come to this funeral."

For Justin the funeral was also "the first step out of the limbo you're in".

"The funeral was a release and such an important moment to deal with the tragedy.

"My memory of the wake was it was an amazing night... all of my brother's friends were there, we went to the local pub, everyone got wrecked, we listened to all of the music he would have liked, his mate DJed.

"I remember that night disconnecting with the idea that my brother was dead and feeling like somehow he was alive again."

Porter said the process of making the show had been a way of "rationalising and digesting" his grief for his uncle and other relatives.

In recent months, Boris Johnson and his government has faced intense pressure over gatherings held in and around Downing Street during Covid lockdowns.

When asked how he felt about the partygate scandal, Porter said: "To think that the poor guy [his uncle] never got to see his family for six months while people were partying - it's horrendous."

"People in the higher echelons of society think they can act in any way they want and those who serve them are kind of irrelevant - that's a learned behaviour - that mentality can be linked way back to colonialism and all those kinds of things and we're just serfs to them."

He said being "Butetown born and bred", he was glad the production reflected his community and showcased the talents of others from the area, many of whom had not worked in theatre before.

"Theatre is an artform that from my experience is not necessarily linked with working class communities," he said.

He said the production was "a good opportunity to tell a different kind of theatre from different kinds of voices".

Circle of Fifths opens at the Dance House at Wales Millennium Centre on 18 June and runs until 26 June.