This Was Your Life

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This Was Your Life is a three-person effort backed by a fairly interesting concept. We are a fake audience for a fake reality television show set in purgatory, and we are the ones who get to decide whether Michael (Will Guppey), a drink-driving love rat, gets to go to heaven or hell. We even have laminated cards and everything.

And then it all goes wrong. We are introduced to a whole host of characters, twenty five in fact, who are on hand to defend or attack Michael. The thing is, it’s quite hard to care either way as there is no reason to like or hate him, he is completely void of personality and flops his way around the show with a pathetic desperation that is dull and unimaginative. Rushing their way through so many personas leaves plenty of room for error, with particularly baffling portrayals including a German drag queen who does the splits a lot and a fish and chip owner who shouts for a while. Weird.

In the midst of this bombardment are the songs. Oh the songs; At first they seem almost sarcastically basic, but then continue to disappoint with their dedication to vapidity. Barely a note is reached between the three performers, who instead strain and bob their way through a throughly awkward hour.

The show actually has the ability to make you physically angry at how badly executed it all is and, unfortunately, there really isn’t anything to take away from a performance which becomes defined by its own bad judgement.