Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen (NHB Modern Plays): (2023 edition)

By Marcelo Dos Santos

A permanently single, professionally neurotic stand-up comedian finally meets his Mr Right – and then does everything wrong.
Is Mr Right quite what he seems? And just how far will the comedian go to get a laugh?
Marcelo Dos Santos's play Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen is a dark and bitingly funny one-man show about vulnerability, intimacy, ego and truth. It premiered in the Roundabout at the 2022 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, produced by Francesca Moody Productions, directed by Matthew Xia, and starring Samuel Barnett.
The critically acclaimed, Fringe First-winning production transferred to the Bush Theatre, London, in November 2023.
'I'm thirty-six, I'm a comedian, and I'm about to kill my boyfriend.'
'Blending dark humour, pathos and a hearty dash of millennial angst, [this] deserves to be the next Fleabag… the gag-count is ridiculously high and the writing overall has a Bennettian finesse… it's enviably accomplished' - Telegraph
'Enthralling… a compelling and troubling character study with some killer punchlines' - Guardian
'A cleverly constructed piece of writing, and often very funny' - The Stage
'Frank, funny and occasionally filthy… a nice piece of writing, following in the footsteps of Fleabag' - Independent
'Unsettling and deeply clever… The questions posed by Dos Santos's knife-sharp writing are satisfyingly complex… It's a very funny show, but also a telling one and it confirms Dos Santos as a really interesting writer, using an examination of the mechanisms of comedy to peer closely into the workings of the human heart' - WhatsOnStage
'Very entertaining and sharply funny' - Lyn Gardner - Stagedoor
'Funny and pleasingly absurdist… An entertaining, sometimes outrageous hour, brought to a very skilled climax' - Time Out
'Is this the male Fleabag? Marcelo Dos Santos's fevered monologue about a romance on the verge of a nervous breakdown… holds us spellbound for an hour' - The Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nick Hern Books
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9781788507035

Marcelo Dos Santos

Marcelo Dos Santos is an award-winning playwright and scriptwriter. His plays include: Backstairs Billy (West End, 2023); Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen (Summerhall, Edinburgh, 2022 and Bush Theatre, London, 2023); New Labour (RADA, 2014, directed by Richard Wilson); Lionboy adapted from the novels by Zizou Corder (Complicite, 2013 and 2014); Lovers Walk (Southwark Playhouse); and Cheer Up, This is Only the Beginning (Liverpool Playhouse).

Book preview

Marcelo Dos Santos

FEELING AFRAID

AS IF SOMETHING

TERRIBLE IS

GOING TO HAPPEN

NICK HERN BOOKS

London

www.nickhernbooks.co.uk

Contents

Original Production

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Characters

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible is Going to Happen

About the Author

Copyright and Performing Rights Information

Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen premiered in Roundabout at Summerhall as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2022, after which it transferred to the Bush Theatre, London, in November 2023. The cast was as follows:

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Gabby Vautier (ImPOSSIBLE Producing), Emma Cameron, Emily Hamilton, Zbigniew Kotkiewicz, Jane Fallowfield, Oscar Toeman, the Royal Court and Arts Council England for their support on the initial workshop; Simon Blakey and Seán Butler at The Agency; Maddie Hindes, Sarah Liisa Wilkinson, Deborah Halsey, Matt Applewhite, Tamara von Werthern, Jon Barton, Robin Booth, Ian Higham, Tim Digby-Bell, Beth Fisher, Sarah Lambie, Marcus O’Neill, Isabelle Culkin and Nick Hern at Nick Hern Books; Kenny Emson, Jamie Hakim and Patrick Welch for the chats.

M.D.S.

To Rhys Warrington,

for changing everything

This ebook was created before the end of rehearsals and so may differ slightly from the play as performed.

A MAN. A microphone. A microphone stand and stool.

I’m thirty-six, which is fine.

It’s fine.

Is it? I mean it’s technically allowed, so.

I’m thirty-six and up until very recently, I’d never been in a proper relationship.

Which is also fine because I have absolutely no fear of dying alone.

Because I’m a very chilled, in-the-moment, sexually adventurous sort of human person.

For example a gentleman once asked if he could eat sushi off me and seeing as it was a Tuesday and life has no meaning I said: ‘yeah’.

You know how you do: like, ‘yeah’.

Lower-case, super-cool; ‘yeah’.

Like you’re so tired at the thought of being a human sushi platter AGAIN that you can’t even bring yourself to capitalise the y.

What was a little cheeky was that he told me to bring my own sushi.

He offered to pay me back though so romance not entirely dead.

It might have died later though when it turned out the supermarket sashimi had curdled on the bus ride over.

Beat.

Sorry.

Beat.

I’ll start again.

I’m thirty-six, and I’m a comedian, although I prefer the title ‘sad for pay’.

Or ‘professional neurotic’.

Or ‘a bit like, oh you know what’s-his-name with the hair, but not as funny’.