It is well known that people die on stage. These unfortunate figures are generally categorised as having died in one of two ways: the Figurative and the Literal.*
The most common of these, by far, is the Figurative death. Have not we all figuratively died on stage? For whom amongst us has not trod upon the boards and forgotten a line, or performed some dreck, or fell on our faces, or been too inebriated to sing our songs (also dreck) and so died a thousand deaths – scenes which are to be repeated forever in our daydreams and nightmares until our (literal) dying days?
Further subcategorisation of this stratum is of no utility** and therefore of no interest to this article.
The second category, the Literal death, can be itself divided into two camps: the Medical and Accidental. For the Medical death, as an example, see Tommy Cooper suffering a heart attack in front of 12 million fans guffawing at the hilarity of his performance - for there is nothing funnier than dying, you see?
For the Accidental death, there is, again, a further subdivision: Ill Fortune and Misadventure.
For a noteworthy example of an Ill Fortune death, note Ken "Snakehips" Johnson way back in 1942, during the Blitz, at the Café de Paris playing his signature song, "Oh Johnny", when a bomb hit the building causing his unfortunate death. Or - if you prefer a more recent example - when four members of the band Seventeen died on the auspicious date of 22/12/2018 as they had the singular misfortune of a tsunami crashing into the stage they were performing.
Now, the other Accidental death, Misadventure - being far rarer than the bog-standard heart attack, equipment malfunction, Act of God or psychotically-induced assassination - is perhaps the most beautiful of the onstage demises. For who does not want to die for their art? Far better to fly too close to the sun and be obliterated as you hit the ground than fade away in to irrelevance.
For this phenomena, do not see Harry Houdini (who has been Mandela Effected into a death-by-drowning whilst locked into straightjacket in front of a shocked audience) but instead consider poor, sweet Patrick Sherry dying by crashing to the floor after stagediving into an apathetic audience in Leeds, 2005.
*For purposes of clarity, here “dying” does not meant the intentional killing of oneself or others and, so, this has been left out of the classification system, justly or not. For these style of deaths see the seperate article: “Suicide/Murder for Entertainment Purposes and Subdivision thereof” H. Bloom (2023)
**For schorlarly articles on Figurative ways die on stage, please refer to The Lancet vol J. Ed. J (HCE Publications, Wakefield)
Fig A: current system of Onstage Death Categorisation
Recently, a new substratum of Literal/Medical deaths seems to be emerging: the Anticipated death. Some naysayers may see this as merely part of those deaths that exist in a group alongside those such as state executions - for, if, as Billiam Shakespeare would have it, All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players then our deathrow inmates are indeed playing a sublime role***. This, however, is not the view taken by our august publication.
So, thusly, there is therefore proposed not one but two more substrata of on-stage death: The Literal/Medical/Unanticipated death - see the aformentioned example of Tommy Cooper’s body being dragged twitching behind the theatre curtain whilst acts performed mere feet in front of his lifeless corpse - which is implicitly created by the new subtratum previously proposed and the one which concerns us now - the Literal/Medical/Anticipated death.
***and therefore, not for inclusion in our stratification.
Fig B: proposed new system of Onstage Death Categorisation
For years, Bobby D had been ailing. The problem with life is that, after a while, you become used to it and, after a while, you become set in your ways and, after a longer while, your brain becomes ossified and, after an even longer while, you do what you do because it’s what you’ve always done. If you’re successful and you’re powerful then the world allows you to continue doing what you’ve always done. If you ever questioned it, what-you’ve-always-done would obviously seem right and proper and good as it has led you to where you are today which is the very very top - so what-you-have-always-done and, by extension, what-you-do must be correct and in no need of change; it has been time tested and it has passed this test. Very much passed the test! Except, you would never think to question what you do and how you do it or why you do it. Why would you? It’s what you do and what you do works!
For years, Bobby D had been ailing and for years and years and years what Bobby D did was play on stage. To begin with, he wrote songs and was loved and adored for writing songs and this allowed him to play on stage and play on stage he did. He winked at his audience. He called his tour the Always-Happening Tour (until he didn’t but it was the same old tour). And as time went on, he changed. Not in the way he did things. Oh no. That stayed the same. Playing on stage just the same. He always played on stage. Just… the manner in which he played changed. He was known to be impishly perverse (see the tour name and the subsequent tour name change) so the audience went along with it. The audience knew he loved to play.
Except the audience didn’t know shit. He didn’t love to play. He didn’t not love to play. Playing is just what Bobby D did.
Exactly, how did his playing change? Well, he aged - as we all do, as we all are doing right now - and the first thing to change was his voice. Always unusual - Hiraku Makimura once described Bobby’s voice as being like “a kid standing at the window watching the rain” - his voice devolved into a throaty rasp. Nothing to be done about that. But fans still came. Still got it, they said.
Then it was the songs. The songs would change to become unrecognisable (how impish Bobby D!) but his fans still came to watch. How inventive, they said.
Then he stopped playing guitar. Too much standing up. He started playing keyboards. More sitting down. And the fans came. Nice to hear the ivories, they said.
They still came to see him with his voice a husk of what it was, with his songs unrecognisable, with his movement down to a shuffle, with his guitar permanently packed away.
Bobby D’s life had been a success because of what he did. And what he did was tour. What he did was play. So he carried on touring, playing every city in the known world. But time takes a toll on us all. He became noticeably frail and the message boards started whispering: would he die soon? Would we be deprived of the man? But Bobby D continued to do what he had always done and played on. So the question changed: would Bobby D die on stage?
A gruesome, macabre interest grew in his “shows” as he did less and less in them. Would they, the audience, be there - actually there in person - when he keeled over? Or would he just give up when it became clear his body could no longer play? However, Bobby D ignored all the chatter and did what he always did. He was successful and powerful and impishly perverse so no would stop him. He played and played.
But, he would never “keel over” on stage. First came the wheel chair. That was fine. To say it was not would be to disparage the disabled. He sat in his wheelchair and played the piano. All fine. All fine. Maybe there was life in the old dog yet!
Then he played the piano less. And less. Then not at all. It became something to rest his hands on as he growled approximations of his tunes.
Then there were less words in his songs - just a grumbling of a line or two whilst his band - shit hot young(er) men who had been going with the flow for years (because going with the flow is what they did) - played around him.
Then, one day, at a performance in Gdansk, he made no sounds at all. Just sat there looking at the audience as his band played. The fans adored that show. What a clever use of silence, they said. And that gaze! The night after that, because there had to be a night after that, after all, he was wheeled on stage lying in a bed. Can Bobby D no longer sit up? they muttered. Was this the end? But he sang! A return to form! they cried. And night after night, Bobby D continued to play from his bed. Sometimes croaking a line, sometimes not, and - as time went on - he would appear to be asleep on stage.
Waking up, spluttering, laughing, merely sleeping, but always, always, on stage.
The crowds. They became bigger and bigger. For tonight - surely tonight - would be the night.
It made front pages all over the world when the respirator first came onto the stage with him. Some said he was in a coma. Others said they were sure they could see him smiling at the audience. By this point, he hadn’t said a word for months, so who knew? He was impishly perverse, it could all be part of the act. People appreciated how the band incorporated the rhythms of the breathing machine into his “songs”. He’s still got style, they said.
So now, Bobby D comes out, every evening, in his bed, with his respirator breathing for him, to a new crowd, to a new city. Because that is what-he-does and what-he-has-always-done. And the audiences grow and grow. For, surely, one day he must die on stage (Literal/Medical/Anticipated).