Upon closer inspection of the army of black and pink leaflets that stealthily found their way into the various nooks and crannies of my bag, I found a huge, paradoxical advertisement: Bereavement – The Musical. Indeed the entire premise of the musical, which ‘promises to teach you nothing at all,’ seemed to be paradox. “Why would they do that?”, I thought.

It was in pursuit of an answer to this question that I found myself in conversation with Jeff Carpenter, Andy Brock and Mairin O’Hagan, the first team of students at Cambridge to write their own musical.

What were your different roles in the musical?

Mairin: Well I wanted to write a musical with Jeff, and he had been sitting on the idea of a musical about Bereavement for a while. And then Andy came in on it as director quite soon after at which point the process really was more collaborative than anything.

How long had you been ‘sitting on the idea’ for?

Jeff: I can’t really say, since Cambridge?

Andy: I think they picked it because it’s more like song cycle than a traditional West End singing and dancing musical. There is obviously singing and dancing in it, but the songs are beautiful kind of self-contained reflections on different aspects of bereavement from their experience.

Did it grow out of personal experiences with bereavement then?

Mairin: Well Jeff and I both lost parents in our teens and personally I was struck by what a lonely experience that is because most people our age haven’t really experienced much bereavement, or much grief…

Jeff: Which I think made us want to give the audience a fresh insight into what grief could mean in general. What most people understand about grief is the reduced version that forms the twenty second subplot of CSI.

So what is the new take on bereavement in the musical?

Andy: We’re so focused on dying, on the fact that death just happens, to everyone, but bereavement is actually quite tedious – quite boring. Jeff said to me once that there’s never a point when you stop being bereaved.

Why did you choose the musical form?

Mairin: We didn’t want to have too much dialogue because that’s a way to circumlocute. However, if you have a song you can get straight to a messy situation.

Andy: And there is cathartic effect to that.

Jeff: Also, I think there are two things in life that are absolutely absurd. One of them is bereavement and the other of them is musical theatre.