We sat down for an exclusive interview with Iona Gray, who created The Gray Space to be a zero-pressure playground for creatives. In a supportive community space, ideas are explored, risks are taken, creative joy is rediscovered… and new productions are born!
‘That’s Life’ is The Gray Space’s sold-out debut production, happening at Etcetera Theatre, Camden 18th & 19th July.
- That’s Life is set in a grief retreat where there is ‘no therapist in sight’. What drew you to that premise, and what did it allow you to explore about grief that a more conventional setting might not?
That’s Life began as a devised exploration in a Gray Space workshop, inspired by a prompt that suggested ‘something’s been taken from you’. From the outset, our interest lay in exploring grief in its broadest sense, not just bereavement, but loss connected to identity, relationships, guilt, and change.
The absence of a therapist was very crucial to the devising process. It’s helped to clarify that there’s no single process, no clear language, and no neat resolution. Without a guiding authority, the characters are forced to acknowledge and navigate their feelings themselves. It’s messy, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s very real. Through their grief, unlikely relationships are born, and we understand the importance community has in humanity.
We chose a grief retreat because we thought it would strip away the distractions and performances of everyday life. Whilst it allowed characters to sit more honestly with their personal losses, we realised that even in a space designed for openness, the subject matter of grief in any social environment remains unapproachable. Despite grief being one of the few universal experiences, it’s still our biggest kept secret.
- The piece was collaboratively devised by the company. As director, how did you shape everyone’s contributions into one coherent theatrical world while still preserving the company’s individual voices?
My responsibility from the start has been to hold the overall vision and the central themes of the production. As director, I have maintained the gravity of the piece, whilst still preserving the individuality of each performer’s perspective. The actors provided the raw material, the characters, relationships and backstory, and my role has been to structure them into a clear dramatic arc without losing the authenticity of their contributions.
I’ve made sure to listen carefully and identify the threads connecting everyone’s ideas. Each character is on their own distinct journey, so there is already a natural sense of separation within the piece. Finding a one coherent theatrical world beneath all that was not so much in them sharing the same language as such but sharing the same reality. It was about shaping each voice into a means the other characters could respond to.
Once the devising process closed out, I shaped the material into a script (a lot of which was verbatim from workshops). The additional ideas I brought in were always discussed with the relevant company members, ensuring they were included in the writing process. I’ve made sure that throughout they have been consulted, and are content that the characters they created are accurately and respectfully represented in my storytelling.
- The description mentions that humour ‘slips through the cracks’ even as the play deals with loss. How important was humour in helping the piece avoid becoming too heavy or sentimental?
In a piece like this, humour is essential, not decorative. People rarely experience grief in a single emotional register, and humour reflects that reality. It allows laughter, deflection, and finding absurdity in ordinary moments. The comedy element heightens a sense of survival, a constant negotiation between light and dark. It’s humanity at its fullest, and it lets the audience lean in more, giving the heavier moments a louder voice. Comedy generates a recognisable experience, and releases tension so that the audience stay engaged.
Less ‘traditional’ grief can be socially awkward, fragmented or even invisible. Humour becomes a way of exposing that vulnerability and discomfort. Comedic elements emerged organically in the devising process, as part of how the actors instinctively navigated difficult emotional territory. The piece is rooted in genuine human observation rather than just existing as a theatrical concept, and humour has been a big part of that.
- Your work seems strongly rooted in community and collaboration, especially through the Gray Space workshops. How does that workshop practice feed into your directing process for a production like That’s Life?
The most important thing to me is creating a safe, open space that allows for authenticity, experimentation, and risk-taking. Having built the Gray Space workshops around curiosity and play, that ethos naturally feeds into my directing practice. I aim to create work that feels more lived-in, more responsive, and maintains a sort of connection to the people making it.
My workshop practice has guided my directing process to generate a shared creative space that can hold and validate experiences that don’t always have language elsewhere. For a sensitive production like That’s Life, it’s vital to be accommodating to lived experience within the room. I make sure that there is care and sensitivity with what is both spoken and unspoken.
Although I came into this project with a clear vision, my approach is very process-led. I’m aware that working collaboratively will often stray from my original thinking, and I’ve learnt how and when to welcome that. Like in my workshops, I provide the framework and direction, but the work will naturally evolve in the rehearsal room with actors’ own instincts, experiences, and ideas. I’ve learnt how to create enough structure to hold the piece together while still leaving space for unexpected discoveries.
- You describe wanting to create theatre that connects everyone in the room. Both onstage and off. What kind of connection do you hope audiences will leave with after seeing That’s Life?
For me, the beauty of theatre comes from feeling seen without being under the lights. There’s something incredibly intimate about sitting in a room full of strangers and recognising yourself in a character, a moment, or even in another audience member’s authentic reaction.
There’s something deeply validating about hearing people laugh, gasp, or fall silent at the same moment you do. It reminds you that your feelings, however personal, are shared by others too. In that sense, theatre becomes a collective emotional experience. It becomes a form of group therapy. With That’s Life, that connection also exists within the creation process itself. The actors don’t just perform these characters, they helped create them. When audiences connect with the work, they’re also connecting with the performers’ emotional honesty and lived instincts, and there’s something very special about that to me.
I hope audiences leave feeling a little less alone in whatever they may be carrying. It doesn’t provide answers, but I hope it provides recognition. I hope it sparks conversations and revelations between strangers because they too have a story to tell. It’s also about being connected and safe in how you feel, because the room around you is exposing themselves too.