Well, for a 50-year-old man on a Tuesday afternoon who didn’t live to see Thursday night, he’s still light on his toes, you think, as you watch the footage yesterday: Michael Jackson’s last rehearsals.

Released by his concert promoters, AEG, the 1.34-minute clip shows Jackson in Staples Centre, Los Angeles, rehearsing the 1995 hit They Don’t Care About Us.

After the week his reputation has had in the press — the baldness, the malnutrition, the drug abuse, the anxiety — it comes as a surprise to actually see him again. He still looks like Michael Jackson. He still moves like Michael Jackson — there’s no mistaking the bullwhip-crack of his arm-flicks; the pharaonic juts of the head; the way his centre of gravity seems to be low, low down, in the soles of his slouchy black loafers.

It’s certainly not a klieg-bright final flash of genius. He looks out of breath, and it is unfortunate that the greater portion of the footage shows him doing what appears to be a very serious homage to Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks.

But, because of his inarguable, unnegotiable and probably never-ending fame, this is footage destined to be as rerun as Diana, Princess of Wales going through the revolving doors at the back of the Ritz.

And what you will see, time and time again, is the last six seconds.

Jackson stands, panting slightly. A disembodied voice — presumably the choreographer’s — booms over the PA: “Hold for the applause, hold for the applause, and — slow fade out.”

There is no applause: Jackson had seen his last live audience a long time before. As the footage spools to the end, Jackson’s face contorts. It could be a smile, or a grimace. The lights are already too dim to tell.

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