Help! We Are Still Alive. Seven Dials Playhouse.

Imogen Palmer and Tim Gilvin’s kind-hearted musical two-hander Help! We Are Still Alive gives us a modest and familiar scenario and then adds a twist. You love your partner, but you are no longer in-love with them. You want to move on and meet new people. The twist? You are the only two people left alive at the end of the world and that rather restricts your options.

Help! We Are Still Alive’s director Georgie Rankcom was responsible for the Southwark Playhouse’s highly regarded (if sometimes hard to follow) revival of Sondheim and Laurent’s Anyone Can Whistle earlier this year. They have a significant track record with new musicals. So, it is no surprise that this 80-minute piece feels as polished, pacey, and slick as it does.

Palmer’s book is not without flaws. A two hander relies on a certain level of conflict between the characters. Jass (Jade Johnson) and Finn (Elijah Ferreira) are about the nicest people you would care to encounter, post- apocalypse. She is funny, in an in-your-face kind of way, and he is an adorable goof. They agree with each other, most of the time, on most of the important things. They face the central queer choice, self-contained coupledom, or a more open style of relationship, with love and respect for each other. Sustained dramatic tension is perhaps a tad lacking here.

The environment the couple end up in also seems unexpectedly benign, considering that it is the end of the world. No antagonistic zombies, an inexhaustible supplier of canned spaghetti hoops, a comfortable campervan to live in, and remarkably good teeth for four years without a dentist. It is not totally clear why the fish, rats, and foxes survived the polluted fog that did away the other humans, but maybe it does not matter.

Johnson and Ferreira’s voices are folksier than your average musical theatre performer. But they hit their notes with appeal and Ferreira plays a good guitar. Gilvin’s assured music and lyrics have enough variety to make for easy listening, and the key love song I’ve Got You is touching and congenial.

It is not often, even off West-End, that you get to see a positive and proud love story featuring a trans man and directed by a non-binary theatre-maker. For that reason alone, Help! We Are Still Alive feels, and is, important. It is about a couple who are proudly queer but are never only queer. There is something here for everyone in a show that is unassuming, inclusive, and eminently watchable.

Music & Lyrics: Tim Gilvin

Director: Georgie Rankcom