James Rowland Dies at the End of the Show review – it’s the final countdown
If you had an hour, just an hour, and it was your last hour, and there was an audience in front of you, what would you say? This is the brief that James Rowland, the gentle storyteller and sweaty, near-naked man who stands in front of us in a hospital gown and crocs, set himself. This raggedy finale to his trilogy of soft, stark shows (Learning to Fly, Piece of Work) was meant to run before Christmas but had to be delayed for an emergency trip to hospital where, Rowland learned, you do in fact wear pants beneath the gown.
For his sweet, scatter-gun final hour, Rowland chooses love. He hands us a smattering of nature and laughter and the floating first note of a song. Soundtracked by his favourite music, he tells us with the world’s brightest, saddest smile about birds, waterfalls, his cat, his partner. Finding comfort in tales that are handed down so they’re never forgotten, he devotes a large chunk of time to his dream iteration of Robin Hood, his gown flapping as he runs about the stage playing each part. Glowing behind him, a digital clock counts down.
Each tale takes shape as an escape pod, a way to tear our attention from the countdown on the wall
They are odd and unshapely and sometimes beautiful, these little stacks of half-finished thoughts. It frequently feels as if the story is going nowhere, and though he enjoys it, the Robin Hood tangent does drag. But, just as Rowland is easily distracted, chatting to latecomers and veering from one tangent to the next, each tale takes shape as an escape pod, a way to tear our attention from the countdown on the wall. This is how we live, the play says, by losing ourselves in one small moment of wonder after another.
Rowland leafs through the messy stack of papers he is holding, his script of doodles and scrawled notes-to-self. He has so much to tell us, so many moments of grace to draw our focus to. But there are 10 minutes left and we can’t possibly get through it all. The narrative doesn’t slide into one place or come to a clean conclusion. Instead, the pages are thrown up to scatter the stage. It is a feeling of something unfinished, still in progress. Something with life left in it, even as the clock reaches its end.
• At Camden People’s theatre, London, until 25 January. Then touring until 30 May.
