See Primark and Die is the fourth and final play in Claire Dowie’s Swansong now showing at Finborough Theatre. Originally first staged in 2010 with the title Buy Little, Buy Less, Buy Nothing At All it has been revised and updated recently and now includes references to Sir Keir Starmer searching through supermarket waste bins in Westminster, with Rachel Reeves as lookout, as well as other topical references!
This play is Dowie’s often outrageous and amusing yet thoughtful take on the environment and being ‘green’. It all starts in Peckham’s Primark: “so we got to Peckham. Parked in Morrison’s. Walked around the corner. Primark looming. It loomed. It was too big. Too blue“.
Suddenly Dowie has a panic attack. “I can’t breathe… I’m drowning in a sea of tat… But suddenly this big guy appears” and takes her outside, pats her on the head and leaves her there. She quickly discovers that she has “shopophobia” and is unable to go into any shop to browse, let alone buy. So, she begins meditating on food waste, on our obsession with shopping. She digresses onto funerals and the cost of coffins, especially cardboard ones which, it appears, are more expensive than wooden ones, wondering why BBC’s Blue Peter cannot do a feature on making your own coffin from a fridge-freezer carton!
She talks about her Aunt Alice who was almost self-sufficient until the day she died, but then could not be buried in her garden to help fertilise it! Wigan Wallgate (the railway station) comes into it somewhere as does a washing line full of white clothes and the government controlling our lives.
Lidl, Aldi, Slugs, snails, the South Circular Road and the zombie apocalypse are also mentioned as we are bombarded with Claire’s views on almost everything – often totally outrageous, but with that naughty Puck-like Pixie face that dares us to find anything she says offensive. It does make you think – it does put a new perspective on life and living, as all Dowie’s work seems to do. And of course, it does make you laugh!
As always, the time flies by, leaving us, the audience, with much ‘food for thought’ even if we now have to go into a shop to buy it! Oh, and by the way, we learn that M&S packets of salt are much more effective than those from Tesco or other places, should you wish to clean your teeth…
Claire Dowie is only at Finborough Theatre until 5 July, and, because there are four plays in repertory, there are only about five more performances of each. If you do not know her work do try to see at least one of them – if you do know her work you will need no urging from me: real “In Yer Face” theatre!
Review by John Groves
After a panic attack in Peckham Primark, a woman finds herself spiralling into a new affliction – shopophobia –and embarks on a surreal journey through supermarket standoffs, dumpster diving, and Jedi-fuelled revelations.
This razor-sharp, darkly hilarious theatre show – that foresaw the current burgeoning international “Buy Nothing” movement – dives headfirst into the chaos of modern capitalism, identity, and our strange addiction to stuff.
Told with wit, rage, and warmth, part stand-up, part social satire, See Primark and Die is a wild, laugh-out-loud ride through consumer collapse and the search for something real among the reduced stickers.
SEE PRIMARK AND DIE (BUY LITTLE, BUY LESS, BUY NOTHING AT ALL)
Presented as part of Claire Dowie’s Swansong
Finborough Theatre
10 June to 5 July 2025 (selected dates)
