Dead funny: funky coffins to go on show

Coffins made to bring a smile to the saddest of farewells are to go on show in a festival celebrating death.

The "funky coffins" which are all the rage in Ghana, include boxes made in the shape of a corkscrew, a football boot and even the Angel of the North.

The Southbank Centre is to display a range of designs as part of a weekend of events exploring death.

The BBC Concert Orchestra will perform a concert with funereal classics by Gustav Mahler, John Tavener and Samuel Barber, while Paul Gambaccini will spin the nation's favourite funeral music in Desert Island Death Discs.

Actor and writer Chris Larner will present his play about his ex-wife Allyson's journey to the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Music journalist Paul Morley will discuss the host of rock stars to have died aged 27.

But Jude Kelly, the Southbank Centre's artistic director, insisted the three-day festival was not morbid but "life-affirming", and said she is even expecting moments of laughter.

"There is much about our common humanity that we acknowledge, share and celebrate, so why are we reluctant to face up to the very thing that, in the end, unites us all?" she said. "In the way that a fitting memorial service or a well-observed wake can serve as a life-affirming relief from grief's dead hand, we hope that our new festival can begin to allow some light onto a subject that is too often consigned to the shadows."

Other events include a panel discussion about assisted dying with Channel 4 News's Jon Snow and Baroness Kennedy QC, and another exploring global death rituals such as Tibetan sky burials in which corpses are left on mountain tops.

Terminally ill children will speak at another session.

A children's puppet show, Goodbye Mr Muffin, will explore the final days of a much-loved guinea pig and broadcaster Sandi Toksvig will imagine her own memorial service in a speech.