The flyer for this work-in-progress presentation invites viewers to the death of the world – death by (un)natural disaster, death by war; death by accident; death by fun natural causes; the death of us all. It also tucks in a hidden question at the end: 'how do you feel?'

This reveals a lot about the production. Not only is it immensely (over) ambitious but it self-consciously seeks a form of politicisation in which our supposed media-saturated desensitisation to death is shocked into new life by the power and presence of live theatre. This is an intention to be lauded, and as a work-in-progress piece, there are some good ideas at play here. If the piece is to be developed, however, it could do with some vicious pruning and re-structuring, as it is both too long and too dynamically uniform, and contains just too many ideas all fighting for space to breathe and come alive.

In presenting the various narratives, discussions, re-enactments of and reflections on deaths famous and infamous in a cabaret format, there are the seeds of a good structure and holding form. But the cast shift too much between being a chorus of corpses, children, adults, clowns and over-emoting actors to really make this, at this stage, a convincing format – and performances vary from funny and assured to really rather bad. As the MC, however, Ian Golding really is a breath of fresh air. In turns paranoid, frantic, charming, psychotic and sexy, the strength and focus of his performance hold together what otherwise would be a flat and fragmented piece of work.