Death and Penelope

Death playing Jenga

Death reading a newspaper

Penelope

Penelope is the author of a series of somewhat unsuccessful self-help books. She is suffering from a bad case of writer’s block as she writes one last book after having been diagnosed with a terminal illness. She struggles to focus, particularly as Death (the Grim Reaper) has moved in with her and takes to watching loud television and nagging her to hurry up. However, Death gradually begins to show a softer side and becomes a subject for Penelope to test her self-help methods on by teaching him to become more personable.

I originally wrote Death and Penelope for Jameson First Shot to the theme “the great and/or unexpected things that can happen when you fear less and invite life in”. Winning the competition would have meant Kevin Spacey producing and Maggie Gyllenhaal playing the lead role. I didn’t make it to the shortlist and so I worked on it some more and produced it myself.

Penelope
Bayley Freer

Death
Owl Young

Ralph
Robert Rowe

Woman in Green
Cindy-Jane Armbruster

Director
Rahman Noor Chowdhury and Glen Delahaye

Producer/Writer
Glen Delahaye

DP
Kamil Iwanowicz

Editing
Leonard Oguntade

Original score
Ross Allchurch

Production Designer
Sorcha Bloom Dunphy

Make Up
Hattie Leviston

Sound
Jillian Speed