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Quirky, sardonic, all-female performance troupe Figs in Wigs have been performing together for 15 years. But with the theatre industry on the brink of collapse and the end of the world nigh, now might finally be the time for them to hang up their headgear for good. At least, that’s what they’re telling us.
‘Big Finish’ is a show of two halves. The mischievous and interminably creative company starts with the tale of the world’s undoing - and it is as absurd and mind-boggling as their previous work.
‘Nothing lasts forever,’ they tell us as they take us through a series of chapters that lead to their final goodbye. They arrive onstage as a pack of dinosaur mask-wearing golfers on a buggy. Then, they perform a synchronized dance number as a group of scarlet puffer-jacketed crabs. Foam drips out slowly from a pipe at the back to resemble an iceberg, while the five Figs form a string orchestra to play ‘My Heart Will Go On’. They read out a will where they give away their remaining belongings: their studio’s tarpaulin roof gets gifted to the Globe – ‘it really needs it’, after all. A life-sized skeleton prop is left to the London Dungeons. Some of the imagery is so farcical, you’re never quite sure what is happening. But somehow 'Big Finish' still manages to feel like a fluorescent horror show and glaring warning about the impending environmental disaster.
When the bizarreness breaks into a satirical ‘post-show talk’, it takes a while for us to realise the Figs are still in performance mode. But it is here that all the mania starts to find its feet, morphing into a more direct attack on the state of British theatre. After a representative from Battersea Arts Centre reads out a lengthy, Arts Council-appropriate CV, describing how the Figs met in 2010 studying Drama at Queen Mary University in London and then went on to build their company, they’re welcomed back to the stage ready for a Q&A. They hoped ‘Big Finish’ would be their Hannah Gadsby moment, they tell us, passing one microphone between them. But, with so many challenges, and their own admission that their style of theatre ‘is embarrassing’ how can they hope to survive in a progressively depressing creative landscape?
It is timely and bleak – but it is all done with The Figs’ characteristically good humour and boundless charisma. Will this be their last bow? Things are left uncertain – but in a just world it wouldn't be.