Colder Than Here

Comparative · 2027 & 2028 Leaving Cert

Laura Wade’s 2005 play hands you a quietly devastating comparative text: a woman organising her own funeral while the rest of her family circles the subject they cannot say out loud.

Myra is dying. She has terminal cancer, and rather than wait for other people to make decisions for her, she takes charge of her own death: she plans an eco-friendly, woodland burial, picks out a cardboard coffin, and even visits possible burial sites. What unsettles her family is not just that she is dying, but that she keeps talking about it so plainly. Her husband, Alec, would rather fix the broken boiler than face the conversation. Her two grown daughters, Harriet and Jenna, react in opposite ways, one tightly controlled and managing, the other angry and unpredictable.

The cold runs through everything. The boiler in the family home keeps breaking down, and the house is freezing for much of the play, so the literal chill of the rooms sits right alongside the emotional coldness between people who love each other but have stopped saying so. Wade keeps the tone surprisingly funny in places, which makes the grief land harder. This is a domestic, ordinary world, kitchens, repair men, awkward family visits, and yet the biggest thing imaginable is happening inside it. That contrast is exactly why it works so well on the Comparative paper.

The four members of this family give you a ready-made set of contrasts to write about. Myra is the planner, calm and matter-of-fact, refusing to let her death be tidied away or decided for her. Alec keeps his hands busy and his heart shut, hiding from the conversation behind jobs that need doing. Harriet and Jenna pull in opposite directions, one trying to manage and control the situation, the other angry, restless and harder to reach. Across the play they edge, slowly and clumsily, towards each other. Wade does not hand you a neat, tearful reconciliation. What you get instead is smaller and more believable: a few moments where the silence cracks and these people manage, briefly, to say something true.

For the Comparative paper this is a flexible text. It sits naturally under Theme or Issue, where the issue of facing death and family silence is front and centre, and it also offers strong material on relationships and on how an ordinary setting can carry an extraordinary weight. Keep your focus on a handful of clear, named moments rather than trying to remember every scene.

Study Colder Than Here

For Paper 2 Comparative you need to be able to discuss this play under your chosen modes. Start with the angle below, then practise connecting it to your other two texts.