'Poignant, joyous and a real piece of theatrical originality'

The boldest, bravest and strangest show that Ell Potter and Mary Higgins have ever made may also be their last. The Last Show Before We Die is an acid-bright, ideas-heavy live art comedy two-hander that mixes silliness and poignancy.

Where their previous productions have been moving, joyous, even revelatory explorations of bodies and the way we inhabit them, this feels born of something wilder. Hotter Project’s Edinburgh Fringe smash, hilarious and heart-rending, is now at Bristol Old Vic’s Weston Studio.

'This is a show about endings' proclaim the performers of this messy but satisfying chunk of theatrical originality.

Made with wild confidence and total abandon, this is a sweaty, heady, gut-wrench and wild ride of a show about endings and what we gain from each other, even when we have to say goodbye. But it is also about friendship and human connection as much as endings.

A remarkable amount of ingenuity, humour, affection, and genuine feeling is packed into one hour.

While the duo built their previous shows Hotter and Fitter from firsthand interviews and lip-synced scenes, here their use of other people’s stories has evolved into something wiser and weirder. With direction by Sammy Glover and movement by Ted Rogers, they run free with strangers’ stories of what they have lost.

A former addict, a grief counsellor, a climate activist, midwife, and even Ell’s now deceased grandpa. Voices turn into percussion. Emotions translate into dance. The world tilts on its axis.

Ell and Mary play slippery zombie-fish flapping on the confetti-covered floor at the end of the world. Clad top to toe in layers of see-through tights with holes in, a bit punk, a bit sci-fi, they wiggle around the stage. This sticky, panting duo read what could be marriage vows or eulogies. It is nominally prompted by former lovers and housemates Higgins and Potter’s desire to disentangle their lives from each other.

With basically no set apart from a paddling pool, some string, scattered confetti and David Doyle’s clubbing-style lights, the pair craft an utterly charming evening.

Equal parts silly, sensual, and serious. Ell and Mary are joined at the hip, exes, best friends, flatmates, and experimental theatre makers. Ell and Mary live together, work together, and used to sleep together. Now they are figuring out if it’s time for their complicated, overly intense relationship to end.

It’s a show self-aware of its own disintegration, as the pair air their friendship’s dirty laundry. Friendship must be celebrated and the duos bond, even if it is ending or changing is lovingly conjured for us.

The two have perfectively fine-tuned their coquettish glances and playfully tease the audience. The show comes into its own when it realises that endings mean less for those whose lives end and more for those that will miss them. The tomfoolery sheds its skin revealing a stark longing, grief and melancholy waiting underneath the surface for the right time to emerge.

Friendship, love, and life in all its transient and ultimately ending reality is explored with a lot of enthusiasm, comedic know-how and at times is unbearably poignant.

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” as the lights dim, is joyful, hopeful, and oddly affecting. An eccentric treat.

The Last Show Before We Die is at The Weston Studio, Bristol Old Vic on April 16-27 at 8pm, with additional 3pm matinee shows on Saturday. Tickets are available here.