Bowie in his own words Tested ™

Bowie, without the masks

Ten years after his death, David Bowie is still omnipresent: in museum halls, in documentaries, in re-releases and tribute concerts. In London, that perpetual comeback has had a novelty added since April 22nd. David Bowie: You're Not Alone, the latest production from Lightroom, shows the man behind the many masks.

You're Not Alone was produced by Lightroom, designed by 59 Studio, and directed by Mark Grimmer—once creative director of the high-profile V&A exhibition David Bowie Is—and Tom Wexler. All this in close collaboration with the Bowie heirs themselves. The result is a continuous loop of an hour-long, 360-degree projected film on the eleven-meter-high walls and floor of the screening room at Lighthouse in King's Cross.

A film?

Yes. The show's strongest weapon is the editing. Multiple times, recordings of the same song from different decades are shown simultaneously on different walls, until image and sound flow seamlessly into each other. Space Oddity from 1969 alternates with a performance from 1990; Rebel Rebel jumps from a performance in 2004 back to Top of the Pops in 1974; and during Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, it is striking how bassist Trevor Bolder throws a scathing look at Bowie. Not coincidentally, because Bowie had just told him in front of five thousand people that the band no longer existed.

"I'm not a prophet or a stone aged man, just a mortal with the potential of a superman. I'm living on." – David Bowie

Fans also get never-before-seen footage of a concert at Earls Court from 1978, and the multi-camera perspective of D.A. Pennebaker's legendary recording of Bowie's last Ziggy Stardust performance from 1973 is shown here in its full breadth for the first time.

No Ziggy, no Duke, just Bowie

The whole story is not about costumes, props, and the many characters that Bowie performed throughout his career. No Ziggy Stardust, no Aladdin Sane, no Thin White Duke in the foreground, but the man behind them. Director Grimmer justifies that choice himself: precisely because the public tends to regard Bowie as something strange, something other than human, the show wanted to display him as someone who refuted that time and again. The content is drawn from the Bowie archive, with rarely seen film footage, photography, handwritten notes, and audio material.

"I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human." – David Bowie

The result is a montage that uses exclusively Bowie's own voice—compiled from hundreds of interview fragments—covering themes such as identity, theatricality, spirituality, songwriting, and creativity. The most uncomfortable moments come from a TV interview with Russell Harty from the mid-seventies, in which Bowie reacts visibly bored to particularly superficial questions.

The design is at least as important as the images themselves. The information density is high. Image and sound follow each other at lightning speed, making details easy to miss. For example, loose scraps of paper with lyrics suddenly lie on the floor under your feet when Bowie talks about William Burroughs' cut-up technique. If he talks about Brian Eno's influence on his recording method, you are suddenly lying between hand-written prototypes of Eno's Oblique Strategies cards.

The last performance

The show concludes with footage of Bowie's very last live performance, in 2004. A poignant performance of The Loneliest Guy, preceded by interview fragments in which he speaks candidly about aging and the fear of death.

"I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring." – David Bowie

That a man who emphasized throughout his entire career how much he liked to hide behind characters and theatricality is presented here as a window into his soul is, to say the least, ambiguous. Yet it works. The show leaves you with the feeling that you will never fully know Bowie, despite everything, and that that is precisely what keeps bringing you back to him.

Practical info

David Bowie: You're Not Alone, Lightroom, 12 Lewis Cubitt Square, King's Cross, London. Day performances until October, evening performances extended until January 10, 2027. Tickets from £25 (adults) / £15 (students and school children). 

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