The Last of Jarman

Posted on 13th February 2026

Mark Farrelly has carved out a niche for himself, portraying troubled souls in a series of one-man plays, exploring lives that range from Quentin Crisp to Frankie Howerd. Last year he came to the Corn Hall with his take on Patrick Hamilton, the author of Gaslight and Rope. After the assured performance he gave on that occasion, it’s perhaps no surprise that the appetite, and therefore the audience, has grown for his latest one-man show.

Jarman explored the life and times of Derek Jarman, a man best known for his ground-breaking films, but also for his unique residence on Dungeness beach. He was twenty-five when homosexuality was legalised, so as a gay polymath was uniquely placed to chronicle society’s shifting attitudes to his sexuality. Farrelly plays with that chronology, opening with Jarman in reflective mood, looking back on changing times, as his body is ravaged by AIDS. Farrelly’s slippery characterisation shifts from fragmentary reminiscences to fourth wall busting audience engagement. There’s a freewheeling chaotic energy to the early part of the play, as an unfettered Jarman enjoys the bacchanalian pleasures of the artistic community he inhabited. Audience participation is not so much encouraged, but insisted upon. This was the first time I’ve been called upon to raise a bed sheet aloft on stage. I dare it will prove to be the last as well.

Jarman’s achievements are mentioned – Sebastiane, Jubilee, Caravaggio – but only briefly, the pitfalls of the standard wikiplay deftly sidestepped as Farrelly focuses on the man, rather than what he produced. As someone who watched, and occasionally enjoyed, most of his output back in the day, I ticked off The Devils, The Tempest, The Last of England, Edward II, but I’m guessing much would have been missed by the more casual viewer, given the fever dream Farrelly’s Jarman seemed caught up in. It was towards the end that a theatrical clarity descended, as his vicious illness took hold. Farrelly’s performance became hard to watch, such was the intensity and commitment he invested into Jarman’s final few years. Supported by his friend Keith Collins, Jarman died at home, an angry atheist that refused to go gently into that good night. In Farrelly’s hands, he lives on.