A few years ago, Greg was put into an induced coma, and he described his experience of that time in a blog: 'I was living deep inside my own brain, in a completely new version of reality. These were not dreams. I will remember these days with the same clarity as everyday memories, they were experiences longer, clearer and more intense than any dream I’ve ever described. There was no waking up'.
The weird accounts in Greg’s blog have now been written up, adapted and directed into a brilliant play by Miriam Higgins and were presented as part of the Oxford Offbeat Festival in Dreamscape.
There are three actors, all in hospital blues and white plastic wellies, and it soon becomes clear that they are all Greg, each taking turns to tell the story and keep it moving along at a fast pace. They aren't just Greg though; they are also the unusual characters that float in and out of his mind. There’s the blonde lady, the circle-face man, all the Drs Who, the zombies and, my favourite one, the gentle chubby man. In reality some of these people are in the hospital room so his parents come and go and there are many mentions of nurses in the story. Roger Moore is in there somewhere, but surely not on the ward... Essentially and mentally, Greg is trying to get home, worrying about the train times from
The three performers, Krage Brown, Jenny Johns, and Danny Steele, are very good in this, keeping the pace up and adopting the varied personas seamlessly. It becomes more fascinating as it progresses, and I was sorry that it had to end, but it did have an excellent ending for this performance. Dreamscape is well worth an hour of your time and quite unforgettable.