James Rowland Dies at the End of the Show

Back with my theatre-buddies/fellow James Rowland fans. He knows. He'd smiled at us at the end of the show in Bristol last week and he waved as we walked in this evening.

It's a bold and thoughtful monologue. What do you remind yourself of, and what do you share with others, when you know it's the last hour of your life? In this case with a countdown clock.

He had a great tatty sheaf of papers, some of which he 'read' from then tossed on the floor, some of which he glanced at and discarded. There were profound half-liners, half finished, rapidly overtaken by the next anecdote. There were short stories. The most time was given to a tale he loved from his childhood.

His timing was extraordinary. A story he was telling would end with the last note of the piece of music he'd put on at its beginning. And yes, as the clock reached 00:00 he 'died'. Said, done, complete, tidy (apart from the papers scattered over the floor), as we might like it to imagine it can be at the end but as few lives really are.

Very, very few of us can know when the last hour will be, but if we are prepared to imagine that we will die soon, perhaps we can understand what matters before then and discard what's less important.