Hi there, @mystaceous!
Oh, I completely understand your use case, and I am really sorry that the new Past Events layout doesn’t meet your needs 
Unfortunately, there is no way to switch the widget to the old view, but we have this idea on the Wishlist. Feel free to upvote it - Toggle for past events display: show under upcoming events or on Previous events page.
If this request gets more votes, we’ll try to consider it in the future updates 