At nineteen, Victor found his long-lost great-aunt Marcelle in Rome. She’d moved from Judaism to Christianity, Lebanon to Italy, changed her name and kept a life-long secret. Inspired by her strength and her rebellion, Victor started making a documentary about her life. Twenty years later, he still hasn’t finished it…

Mixing home videos, storytelling, and live-music, The Death & Life of All of Us is a funny and poignant exploration of belonging, resilience and an unexpected connection to the past that refuses to let go.

Visually rich… a celebration of experimentation on and off stage
The Scotsman

There is a delightful softness to Esses, both in his performance style and writing… there is real tenderness here and emotional connection
The Stage

A funny, thought-provoking exploration of identity and place – both personal as well as geographical… a tremendous piece of performance art
Your Harlow

Victor Esses is a Jewish-Lebanese Latinx queer theatre maker, performance artist and writer. His practice centres nuanced intersectional auto/biographical stories of belonging, resilience and intimacy, encouraging audiences to ask questions about what makes us most human.

He is an associate artist with CASA Festival. His work has been presented in venues across the UK, and has featured in: The Verb (BBC Radio 3); Fertility Fest (Barbican) and Forest Fringe TV. He presents the ‘Global Jewish Voices’ podcast and he recently performed at The Guardian’s ‘Audio Long Read’ podcast. His work has been nominated for the LUKAS Awards, and twice for the Emerge Performance Prize.

 and Prospect. Sweetheart, his debut short film, will be released later this year.