Solène Weinachter is handing out roses and introducing herself to audience members (or guests, as she has us become) as we arrive. We will learn the reason soon enough. We’re all invited to her funeral which, even by the standards of someone who works in the arts and entertainment industry, is apparently set to be a lavish affair. 

First though, Weinachter wants to take us back to a different funeral, that of her uncle Bob. There in the absence of any forethought on her family’s part, she ended up being asked to perform a spontaneous dance to a pan-pipe rendition of ‘My Way’ in a suburban crematorium. This sparked an understandable anxiety in Weinachter about preparations for her own send off. In dance passages, monologues and some background casting on our part (the third row of the theatre gets to stand in for Weinachter’s lovers), she takes us through her proposed ceremony, in a piece which becomes as much about the purpose of art and of living a meaningful life as it is about celebrating the departed.

Weinachter’s observations are fresh and thought-provoking while avoiding clichés of remembrance. In one passage, she murmurs a soliloquy into a microphone while sprawled on the floor in sequinned hotpants, as she recalls clutching her dead grandmother’s belly and imagining the ‘empty space’ where, ‘like Russian dolls’, she and her mother lay waiting to emerge. After All is a deceptively surreal and whimsical piece, but beyond the eccentric spectacle there is real, original food for thought. 

After All, Assembly @ Dance Base, until 27 August, 3.40pm.