The Last Self Tape explores how art, performance and loneliness collide
Actor Ailun Zhou discusses her new play, created with director Robert Price. Sparked by the process of self-taping, the results are ‘absurdly funny and quietly devastating’, she says
If you’re an actor, you have had to get used to the routine of self-taping: just you and the camera, trying to capture a performance that feels alive in an empty room. For Ailun Zhou, a London-based Chinese actor and writer, this practice laid the foundations for her new play The Last Self Tape, which opens at the Cockpit Theatre later this month.
“The whole business of self-taping has been, for me, both the biggest nightmare and the biggest irony of being an actor,” Zhou says. Since graduating from LAMDA two years ago – she also studied acting at ArtsEd and theatre literature at the Shanghai Theatre Academy – she has spent countless hours performing to the lens of her phone. “These days you rarely see an actual human being in an audition – it’s just you, a tripod and a camera,” she says.
It’s a process that can send your head spinning. “I often catch myself in front of the tripod, imagining all the possible reactions from the casting team – nodding, frowning, checking their phones. And there I am, giving everything I’ve got to an imaginary audience that is, in fact, just... a tripod,” Zhou says with a laugh. “After several takes, it starts to feel like a relationship problem.”
So, she set about writing a play that explores that strange in between space – where art, performance and loneliness collide. “I began to think – instead of waiting passively, as if for luck to strike, perhaps I could start creating something of my own,” Zhou explains. With the help of director Robert Price, who was also her tutor at LAMDA, the beginnings of what is now The Last Self Tape started to take shape.
“I’ve always been drawn to writers such as Joyce, Beckett and Yeats,” Zhou says. But it was a conversation about Krapp’s Last Tape by Beckett – the one-act play that deals with memory, regret and the passage of time – that formed the initial spark for the script. “The idea suddenly struck me – what if we created our own version of it? What if the protagonist is a woman, an actor, recording her own ‘last self-tape’? It would be both absurdly funny and quietly devastating,” she continues.
The pair wrote the script together, and the result is a play that zooms in on the mind of a jobbing actor – highlighting the tension between wanting to connect with casting teams and the isolation of constantly performing on your own. But Zhou believes the story reaches more universal themes, too. “It’s not only about an actor’s anxiety,” she says, “but about what it means for anyone to face themselves.”
Performed by Zhou, the story centres on a 29-year-old woman called Chloe. Set in her apartment – which she has barely left for two years – she’s about to record a self-tape, and she’s desperate to get the job. “The character for which she’s taping is very similar to her – neither of them are in a very good mental place,” Zhou says.
Through the act of self-taping, the script reveals Chloe’s unravelling; eventually, she realises she can’t film the tape at all. “She’s unwrapping herself in front of the camera. It’s quite painful to watch, but also funny and healing,” Zhou says. Over the course of the 60-minute show, Chloe looks back on her life and career – from drama school to the other jobs she’s taken on. “She’s forgotten who she is. As well as being an actor, she’s also a production assistant and a daughter. The play is about her rediscovering her own identity.”
Zhou describes her collaboration with Price as a “meeting of minds”. “It’s a cross-cultural relationship,” she explains. “We’re working together to tell one human story, but we have different angles of understanding. He is a man and I am a woman; I grew up in China and he grew up in Britain.” Together, she says, they bring out the best in each other as artists. “The Last Self Tape is a co-written piece. Robert has helped me refine it – it’s about Chloe’s life, the taping process and the wider process of understanding human beings and culture.”
‘I often catch myself in front of the tripod, imagining all the possible reactions from the casting team – nodding, frowning, checking their phones’
Price directs the play, too, and uses a projector to magnify Chloe’s facial expressions on a big screen. “The staging is very simple,” Zhou says. “We’re in her flat, which is full of rubbish – she’s had a breakdown. But in front of the camera and tripod, the setting is very clean.” Both Price and Zhou wanted to highlight the many layers of performance an actor goes through, even just to make a simple tape. “The audience will get a bold visual picture of her self-taping – they’ll see a close-up on the projector of her face.”
Although Zhou admits she’s had her fair share of self-taping struggles, she’s quick to draw a line between herself and Chloe. “Sometimes I think, maybe I should stop acting for the sake of my mental health – why keep torturing myself like this? But then I think, no, not yet. There’s still a small part of me that believes it’s worth holding on,” she says. “I use my own life as source material, but it isn’t 100% about me.”
Still, for actors, The Last Self Tape will feel deeply relatable. “It is really hard, wherever you live in the world, to get a job as an actor,” Zhou says. “A small proportion of people are really famous and secure in their careers, but others are constantly fighting to get a stable income. As an artist, sometimes the thing you dreamed about isn’t quite as beautiful as you imagined it would be.”
“I think it’s important for us to be honest about that,” Zhou says. But she insists that The Last Self Tape is far from doom and gloom. “It’s very, very funny,” she laughs. “I want the audience to come away feeling hopeful.”
Has making the show changed how she feels about self-taping? Zhou pauses before answering. “I used to have a real, deep fear about it. But now, I’m not as nervous when my agent sends me one,” she says. “I want to give my best performance, but I also want to be true to myself. Now, I can confidently think: if you want me, that’s great – but if you don’t, that’s fine, too.”
The Last Self-Tape with run at the Cockpit Theatre, London, November 27-28, 2025. For more details, visit: thecockpit.org.uk
Most Read
Across The Stage this weekYour subscription helps ensure our journalism can continue
Invest in The Stage today with a subscription starting at just £7.99
© Copyright The Stage Media Company Limited 2026
