Steven Phillips-Horst is The Last Mad Man

★★★★½

A copywriter at the end of the world is tasked with rebranding the apocalypse. Stephen Phillips-Horst gives us one man’s creative journey to destruction, packaged as a cerebral satire in an imagined future where technological and social advancements have followed our current trajectory. Laugh-out-loud funny, this new play is disconcertingly familiar as it deals with the humour and humanity of impending doom. 

Steven’s race to the end of the job/world/play is interspersed with flashbacks, powerpoints and voiceovers, leaving not a single slack moment. I had utter confidence in his performance, the strength of which came from its intellectual and political grounding. 

While Steven is a dynamic and brilliantly likeable character, he caters to the whims of his capitalist clients, exposing the selfishness of humanity. His witty levity allows us to forgive him as an accomplice of the apocalypse, but it also makes us ask ourselves: are we glad to be buried? Either Steven really is a brilliant copywriter, or the end does not need much packaging for us to buy it. 

While The Last Mad Man has plenty of moral matter to chew on, Phillips-Horst’s portrait of a man struggling against doubt in his creative process is subtle and poignant. If he proves he is as good a copywriter as he always has been, he will destroy himself and thus cannot win. With an hour’s timer set by his AI companion, Steven’s deadline and the end of the play remain in sight, counting down to his own personal and definitive apocalypse. In this, we are his companions. 

The Last Mad Man’s excellence lies in its empathy, its astute depiction of an individual’s experience of imminent catastrophe. Phillips-Horst’s script is a shining jewel of this year’s Fringe.

The Last Mad Man runs until 30 August (if the apocalypse tarries!).

Mali Delargy

Images via Hiroki Tani