Double Act at Southwark Playhouse Explores Suicide through tragicomedy

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Double Act – Clowning with a serious purpose

When Nick Hyde steps onto the stage of Southwark Playhouse Borough this March, he’ll carry not just the weight of his words but the echoes of a journey that veered sharply from one path to another. From 19 March to 5 April 2025, Double Act, a two-hander Hyde wrote and performs alongside Oliver Maynard, will unravel the inner conflict of a man on what might be his final day.

Directed by Jef Hall-Flavin, the play employs clowning and comedy to navigate the treacherous terrain of male suicide—a subject often cloaked in silence. A post-show talk with the Mental Health Foundation on 24 March underscores its intent to spark dialogue. We were lucky to talk to Nick about the winding road that led to this production, his approach to balancing levity with gravity, and a personality marked by introspection and resilience.

From Stethoscope to Script: A Pivot Born of Despair

Hyde’s story begins not in a theatre but in the sterile corridors of medical school, where he once trained to be a doctor. The experience, however, left him hollow. “I was very depressed. That’s the not-so-fun answer,” he admits with a candour that carries through his work. “Medical school was crushing: I felt out of my depth, on the wrong path. The doctors I shadowed seemed (understandably) jaded and lifeless.” Acting with his university drama society offered a reprieve, and one night, over drinks with friends, a simple suggestion changed everything: “Someone suggested I just quit. I’d never considered it before. It was an entirely new thought—I immediately felt lighter.”

Though he abandoned medicine, its lessons linger like a faint pulse beneath his creative process. “It’s been years since I left and I remember so little of the finnicky little facts they taught us over nine hours of daily lectures imprisoned in a lightless basement,” he reflects, “but it did instil the importance of rigour and taught me the vocabulary for sociomedical issues.” This grounding proved invaluable when researching Double Act. “It gave me a head start. I wasn’t afraid to delve headfirst into verbose studies and articles. My background gave me confidence to approach such a vital topic with levity and joy,” he explains—a hint of that joy flickering through even as he discusses darker themes.

Clowning Through the Shadows

At the heart of Double Act lies an unusual pairing: the slapstick spirit of Laurel and Hardy and the raw anguish of a man’s divided mind. The concept emerged during Hyde’s time at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, where a project on masculinity and male suicide took shape as a 30-minute solo piece—“a bit like performance art,” as he puts it. Back then, it was an oddity: “I was in my boxers for a lot of it. Then channelling an Austrian bodybuilder in a tighter pair of bright gold pants. Then an even tighter pair underneath.” It didn’t translate to broader audiences, so Hyde reshaped it into a text-driven two-hander, preserving the core idea.

“It’s a vestige of an earlier version,” he says, one that sought to use “variety acts and clowning to explore the relationship between masculinity and male suicide.” Humour, for Hyde, isn’t just a stylistic choice—it’s a lifeline. “I think comedy is necessary to make tragedy palatable,” he asserts. “Tackling something of this magnitude without laughter would be repulsive, I think, and given our aim is to encourage people to get talking about male suicide, one of the best ways to get people to engage is by getting them to laugh.” Splitting the protagonist into two voices externalises this tension, a decision that deepened during rehearsals.

“The decision to split the protagonist stemmed from a desire to vocalise self-talk,” Hyde explains, “from mundane trifles to self-imposed rules of public behaviour.” What emerged was stark: “One side has come to terms with what has been planned whereas the other has not. Counterintuitively, the side of his personality most fixated on getting to his destination was less committed for what was to come.” That duality—“the almost manic state of calm and happiness exhibited by some who have made definitive plans to end their lives”—offers a haunting lens on despair.

Anchored by Real Voices

Hyde’s research wasn’t confined to academic texts; it drew on the lived experiences of those on the front lines of mental health support. Collaborations with charities like Body and Soul, Trinity Homeless Projects, and Mind shaped the play’s contours. “They’ve all been brilliant,” he notes, their input woven into early rehearsals and script feedback. Body and Soul helped focus the narrative—“they helped us realise that ‘Double Act’ explores only one person’s experience of suicide, honing the specificity”— whileTrinity brought residents to a preview at the Lion & Unicorn Theatre, where the play previously won an OffCom Award and a Standing Ovation nomination.

“It was a personal highlight to meet them and hear their thoughts,” Hyde recalls. A particularly visceral moment came from an interview with a member of the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team, who arrived late after assisting someone in crisis. “Helping to talk someone off the cliff—that shaped the final scene of the play,” Hyde shares. “We couldn’t be doing this without their contributions.” It’s not every writer who gets quite so close to their subject matter, or who draws on inspiration quite so materially.

The Dual Dance of Writing and Performing

Wearing the hats of both writer and performer, Hyde navigates a tricky balance. “Paradoxically it’s made line learning much harder,” he laughs. “Ollie, the other actor, is word perfect. Jef, the director, loves Ollie. I’m there struggling to get my words out, paraphrasing every sentence, and Jef’s terrified that I’m going to show up to our first preview and just ad lib the entire play.” He reassures with a grin: “I won’t. I’m like 95% there. 90%.” Yet the process, though daunting, carries a quiet reward: “It’s very rewarding, though, when you get over the fear of people judging your words.”

Hyde hopes the play’s raw honesty resonates, particularly with men. “I hope people relate to the self-talk stuff,” he says. “At my lowest point, I was ruthless to myself. It took a while to realise it wasn’t a healthy way to think. Calling yourself out on it—kindly—is so important.” The comedy, he believes, can ease the weight of such discussions: “I also hope the comedy helps to take some of the severity out of discussing how you feel. It doesn’t need to be spoken about with reverence. It doesn’t need to be eloquent or fully formed. It can be messy and brash and vulgar.” Through this, he aims to offer a vocabulary for articulating the unspoken.

A Wider Canvas

Hyde’s career spans early roles alongside figures like Patrick Stewart to recent work on a major streaming project (details undisclosed). Double Act marks a deeply personal chapter, but he’s already eyeing new horizons: “I’d love to write a TV pilot. I’ve just finished a novel, so the first step is to get that published; that’s a salmon run. Let’s see what the future brings!” For now, this play occupies Southwark Playhouse’s intimate space—a venue known for nurturing emerging voices—offering a blend of laughter and sorrow that seeks to pierce through silence.

Double Act doesn’t promise easy answers, nor does it shy from the mess of its subject. Hyde’s journey—from a disillusioned medical student to a performer wrestling with his own words—mirrors the play’s own evolution: a search for clarity amid chaos. Its blend of clowning and catharsis aims to open a conversation in a space where silence often prevails in London.

Featured Image: Olly Maynard (L) and Nick Hyde (R) in Double Act (c) Charles Flint

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Double Act runs 19 March–5 April 2025 at Southwark Playhouse, London. Details at southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.

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