It's The End Of The World... And I Feel Fine

GKV: The first thing that struck me about the piece was how personal it wa – and how massive the subject. What starting points did you use to start developing the show?

GMN: I realised about a year ago that every piece I've made so far was actually looking at an alternate world, or a breakdown of the world as we know it. So I decided to look at that subject directly because it was obviously something I was interested in. I started to reflect and ask myself why I had these fascinations.

GKV: The introduction is really exciting: a four minute warning, followed by snatches of radio and a serious voice warning that the show is about to begin.What struck me here was the popular music you used – how much has that informed your apocalyptic vision?

GMN: Its like that line from High Fidelity:"Do I listen to pop music because I'm depressed or am I depressed because I listen to pop music?" Part of my reflection was noticing the the messages in these rather glittery and cheerful pop songs...

I'm a massive REM fan and I think you could argue that most of their work is all about this world ending in way or another, but its more than just looking at the gore of the end but the political reasons as to why we would want to start again.

GKV: I read in Koestler's The Sleepwalkers that modern apocalyptic visions are often seen as serious because they are based on science – like the Top Five Lists you threw out about the end of the world – while the medieval visions were all about religion and therefore untrustworthy. But you seem to be suggesting that the contemporary eschatology is as much about the themes of pop music! So, in a way, are you undercutting the doom-mongering?

GMN: I guess what it shows is that apocalyptic feelings are omnipresent throughout time and it manifests itself in the medium of the time – before it was religion, now it's pop culture. Perhaps it reflects something more inherent in our thinking rather than something we think about because we are told about it so often...unless it has become inherent because we are constantly told about it.

GKV: It was a great deal of fun to watch the show, especially for the critic who got free peaches from your post-apocalypse survival larder. Did you intend to take the sting out of the harsh truth that we are all doomed?

GMN: Yes, you're faced with a few choices when you take on this subject, one of them is to go down the gloom and doom route but when I get in to shows with the gloom and doom I find it harder to engage, it feels preachy. By using humour, we can get to the serious issues together by offering a lighter way in.

GKV: That was one of the key aspects of the show – using humour to light the way into some dark territory. Yet you were pretty serious about the actual end of the world. Do you get much feedback from audiences – and is it laughing or terrified?

GMN: People tend to say that they are laughing in the moment but if they come in a group they are tell me of discussions they have had after the show about what they would do. One woman told me she is now wanting to start a bee farm after seeing it.

GKV: You end the show wrapped in tin-foil and surrounded by survival kit. You seem to be saying – prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I was entertained but also challenged about my lazy assumption that the apocalypse had already hapened, but we hadn't noticed: you offered me some real, possible scenarios. If you had to pin it down to a quick slogan, what do you want the audience to take away from the show?

GMN: I was thinking this just yesterday, its almost 'live for today', but that runs the risk of sounding like you are encouraging a wasteful attitude, like 'do what you want because tomorrow doesn't matter'...it's more like 'live for today but remember tomorrow'.