The Sunday Post, 8th of June 2019
Tom Machell’s school friend, Steph, died of sudden death syndrome at just 24 years old. As a writer, he was inspired to honour her memory and raise awareness of the condition that took her life with his debut play, ‘Ticker’, at the Edindurgh Fringe. “Steph was a copywriter, writing for lots of different magazines and she loved it and also loved theatre. I thought that if I could do something that I could dedicate to her then that would be great,” he said. “I didn’t want to do a play about her specifically because I think she’d have found it the cringiest thing in the world but I spoke to her family and the idea of being able to raise awareness of the condition in a hopefully entertaining way would be great.”
The play follows Spencer, a young man whose girlfriend, Gabi, dies suddenly of a previously unknown heart condition. “He’s on his own,” said Tom, describing his character. “He’s not talking to anyone about it and he’s very much feeling like an outsider because he’s not allowed to be part of the process of grief or the funeral planning because her family are doing that.”
Dealing with shock and grief in the wake of someone dying of SDS, especially as a man, is one of the central themes of the play. “It was the idea of not talking about things,” Tom elaborated. “I was at a boys’ school and Steph came to it for sixth form. She had a big group of boy mates and I don’t think any of us have actually sat down and had a conversation about her death. We were all at the funeral, but we’ve not actually had a chat about it. I think that was an interesting theme to look at.”
Through this play, Tom hopes to raise funds for Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY) in order to support the charity in providing heart screenings for young people and raising awareness of the condition which took his friend’s life. “CRY are the big charity that support the screenings of ECGs, screening young people for irregular heart beats. They’re saving a lot of lives doing that,” he said. “We’ll hopefully raise some money for CRY and get more people to get their hearts tested. The great thing about the previews is we’ve had lots of nice emails from people saying they’ve gone out and done it.” Read More
