The Last Show Before We Die at the Yard Theatre – review
“This is a show about endings” proclaim Mary Higgins and Ell Potter, the performers and (with director Sammy J Glover) co-creators of this messy but satisfying chunk of theatrical originality. Watching it, I felt that it’s about friendship and human connection as much as endings, although the esoteric nature of the performance sometimes means it isn’t entirely clear what certain sections are getting at. A remarkable amount of ingenuity, humour, affection, genuine feeling and, it must be said, pretension is packed into one hour.
The opening is brave, if nothing else. Clad only in what looks like ripped-up hosiery, Potter and Higgins are discovered convulsing on the floor to deafening dance music, in what we quickly learn is an enactment of death. It takes a commendable amount of chutzpah to potentially alienate sections of your viewers right at the top of the show. However, what follows is so engaging and interesting that it’s impossible not to become involved, while also wondering if in fact the self-conscious weirdness of the beginning wasn’t a deliberate ruse to wrongfoot the audience.
The Last Show Before We Die is slightly reminiscent of the third section of Alistair McDowell’s all of it, performed at the Royal Court just before the pandemic and again last year, which saw Kate O’Flynn go through the entire cycle of birth, life and death in a breathless, poetic tour-de-force monologue. This show is similarly ambitious, although it feels less disciplined, sometimes resembling a faulty exploding firework shooting sparks and flame simultaneously in all directions.
There’s a lot to unpack here, and for every moment of ersatz profundity, there’s something truly brilliant and unexpected, for instance, Potter delivering an impressive, heartfelt version of Cabaret’s “Maybe This Time” while sat in a paddling pool. Or Higgins introducing a poignant section about their recently deceased grandfather but repeatedly self-sabotaging by trying to impersonate a screeching crow in a hilariously misguided attempt at expressionism, quickly scuppered by an unconvinced Potter. When the show turns genuinely serious, such as when the performers – who are flatmates, friends and ex-lovers in real life – read out letters about what they mean to each other, or when we actually get to hear Higgins’ grandfather’s pre-recorded voice talking about his limited remaining lifespan as his grandchild listens in silence, it is almost unbearably poignant.
When Higgins and Potter bicker they recall early career French and Saunders; the same freshness, unpredictability and sheer likability. It’s perhaps ironic then that a couple of moments elsewhere veer towards the sort of arty pretentiousness that Dawn and Jennifer used to lampoon in their TV series. Interpretative dance is a particular bête noir of mine, and there’s an abundance of it here, but at its most successful, such as the strange ballet of co-dependence and desire which sees the performers’ heads locked together, embracing then pulling apart in apparent distress, it’s very effective.
This is a show of multiple dichotomies: hilarious but moving, bizarre but relatable, rigorous but chaotic, frustrating but impossible not to be swept along by. It’s a shame that the patchy acoustics mean that many of the pre-recorded interviews that helped shape the piece are barely intelligible.
The talent and intellect of the team is unmistakable. The final image of Higgins and Potter, both grinning, boogieing separately but in stomp-footed, splayed-hand unison, to Orange Juice’s 1983 indie hit “Rip It Up” (“I hope to God you’re not as dumb as you make out / And I hope to God I’m not as numb as you make out”) as the lights dim and then beyond, is joyful, hopeful, and oddly affecting, like an endless dance of death, life and everything else…it’s impossible not to be moved. An eccentric treat.
