Orlando: The Fish Eat the Softest Parts First

An earnest comedy about parenting, progress, life, death and family.

On Sunday, September 2nd, 2018 I wake up in an armchair in the NeoNatal intensive care unit of Wellington Hospital. My wife is asleep in the wards after a long, tough labour. Our son is alive, but only just.

A kind, practical NICU nurse walks hesitantly toward me with a brown paper gift bag.
“Well, Happy Father’s Day, I guess”

Not unlike Virginia Woolf’s titular character, it seems I have gone to bed a woman and awakened a man.

For fathers and anyone who has known one.


“It’s really fucking brave and reminds me to keep being brave in the face of a
world that’s not always so kind.”
Audience, TAHI Festival, BATS Theatre 2021

“...you are one very special force”
Jessie’s ex-girlfriend’s mum

**Please note this show contains mentions of suicide and birth trauma