The Last Show Before We Die – The Yard Theatre, London

The Last Show Before We Die is an intense, overwhelming, unique, vulnerable, tribute to endings in all their mess, beauty and inevitability.

The Last Show Before We Die

I’m going to start today by quoting myself:

“I really liked that.  I don’t quite know what I saw, but I liked it.”

Me, when leaving The Last Show Before We Die

If you like your theatre straightforward with a standard plot, a set, predictable outcomes and a nice tidy ending, then The Last Show Before We Die is not for you.  If, on the other hand, you like to see theatre that is challenging, vulnerable, daring, and wonderfully idiosyncratic, then you must see this.

The Last Show Before We Die is written and performed by Mary Higgins and Ell Potter, with a Co-Creator credit for Director Sammy J Glover.  It is a one hour, meta-theatrical, intensely personal jaunt through the two performers’ relationship (if not their psyches), as they explore whether this is the end for them.  Is it the end of their partnership?  Of their friendship? Of youth? Are beginnings also endings?  Is a crow impression an appropriate thing to blend with an interview with one’s late grandfather? These are just some of the questions the show poses, and for answers you will have to come and see for yourself.

There is so much packed into just one hour of The Last Show Before We Die that I cannot fit it all into a humble review.  It opens with our two performers, almost naked on a naked set.  The scene is set for the intense emotional vulnerability they will continue to demonstrate throughout.  I learned something about childbirth as they enacted their rebirth.  They danced, they fought, they were close, they grew distant.  There was one hell of a rendition of a show tune. There were props.  The audience got involved.  If you can think of it (or imagine it in a fever dream), it’s probably part of the show.

The Thrill of Live Performance

For me, who probably sees more theatre in a year than is healthy for a person, what keeps me coming back is the thrill of a live performance.  That I watch from my seat as something unfolds so unexpected and unique I have no idea what’s coming next.  This is one of the best such examples I’ve seen in a while.  It’s helped by exceptional performances by both Higgins and Potter. Their connection with the audience and each other never wavers through the full emotional range they demonstrate.  The sound design and musical direction by Tom Foskett-Barnes is of an equal calibre, and David Doyle‘s lighting design is beautiful.

I feel in two minds about how to end this review on a play about endings.  Big endings, like death and relationship breakdown and overcoming addiction. Small endings like running out of loo roll. On the one hand, this is something really special and I hope, having started out at the Edinburgh Fringe, this is not quite the final curtain for The Last Show Before We Die.  On the other hand, this is such a poignant and beautiful tribute to a good ending I think maybe we should respect that and bid it goodbye.  Best to get a ticket for the current run at the Yard Theatre, just in case.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 5/5

The Last Show Before We Die on until 27 January 2024. More info here.