Shell

‘Normally, pets teach kids about death by having the decency to die first. Having a tortoise isn’t like that. Having a tortoise is much, much darker. Having a tortoise teaches you about death in a completely different way because it forces you to contemplate your own mortality.’ When Margot’s dad dies, her main worries are keeping it together during the eulogy and how she can’t listen to ‘The Cure’ without bursting into tears… never in a million years did she think he would actually leave her the f***ing tortoise. This hibernating reptile has now outlived two generations of her family, and Margot’s worried that she might be next. A whirligig of comedy, oversharing and heavily tortoise-themed therapy, Shell is a very funny show about some very unfunny things – trauma, mortality, illness, anxiety and familial responsibility. As she deals with her grief, Margot has to figure out how to be normal around an animal which is simultaneously a pet, an heirloom and (she suspects) her dead relatives reincarnated. But what she first perceives as a sick dad joke from beyond the grave ends up giving Margot much more than she bargained for.