The Old Man & The Pool

Middle-aged mortality is a common enough comedy topic, but Mike Birbiglia handles it by turning a routine doctor’s visit into a slow-motion panic attack. Confronted with a failing pulmonary test and a family history of early heart attacks, he is forced to take up swimming—a prescription that lands him in a highly chlorinated YMCA pool that he remembers from childhood as an uninviting jungle of penises. The show manages to extract comedy from the grim reality of a failing body, transforming medical charts, a diabetes diagnosis, and the sobering task of writing a will with his wife into a structured narrative about trying to stay alive for his daughter. Filmed at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in New York City, this production captures Birbiglia’s 2022–2023 Broadway run before it transferred to London’s West End and subsequently hit Netflix in late 2023. Under the direction of longtime collaborator Seth Barrish, the set features a blue-tiled curved wall designed by Beowulf Borritt to mimic a swimming pool. The performance represents Birbiglia at a highly polished point in his career, working in his signature style of rehearsed, literary solo performance rather than a loose club set, drawing praise from critics who highlighted his ability to find a conversational rhythm within heavy thematic material.