Last and First Men – Coronet Theatre

At a time when humankind seems increasingly determined to write itself out of its own timeline, Neon Dance’s Last and First Men feels uncannily well placed. This 65-minute movement piece is a resonant speculative journey, with at its heart an act of listening: to the future, to the deep past, and to the fragile thread that still connects them.

Based on Olaf Stapledon’s visionary 1930s sci-fi novel, the piece imagines a far future in which the last remnants of humanity reach back across two billion years to address us, the “first men”. Under the inspired direction of Adrienne Hart, the dancers — Fukiko Takase, Aoi Nakamura and Kelvin Kilonzo — perform with an otherworldly, masterful precision that feels recognisably human yet unmistakably other, as if the genus Homo had remained while the species evolved far beyond sapiens. Their gestures feel elemental, embodying an evolutionary possibility. Limbs articulate new anatomies, communication seems telepathic rather than spoken, and emotional expression is largely absent.

Tilda Swinton’s measured narration, set against Jóhann Jóhannsson and Yair Elazar Glotman’s haunting score and Jóhannsson’s final monochrome film, further strips the piece of sentimentality. All excess and distraction appear removed — colour, emotion, even narrative drive — leaving space for an explorative choreography to shine and for the audience to breathe and listen differently. This is a piece that rewards patience. At its best, it recalls Fantastic Planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival — works that reject linear, heroic storytelling in favour of mythic, non-linear time, where meaning unfolds through contemplation rather than action.

Watching this nowadays, when the very notion of progress feels precarious, Last and First Men reads less like a warning and more like a mirror. While Homo sapiens cling to a so-called civilisation marked by collapse and extreme individualisation, the future Homo species imagined here appears paradoxically enlarged — distinct individuals yet bound by a shared consciousness that heightens rather than diminishes them. When the work briefly returns to our present, the contrast is unmistakable: bodies grow agitated, emotions spill outward, movement becomes noise — and what we call progress suddenly looks like reduction.

Set against the constant noisiness of contemporary life, Last and First Men becomes an invitation rather than an instruction — an offering, perhaps, for our relentlessly sapiens minds, so trained to know and explain that understanding and presence can also come from elsewhere. 

Reviewer: Klervi Gavet

Reviewed: 27th February 2026

North West End UK Rating: