Back from a mini tour of Yorkshire and Stockport and cheering for supporting act Indignation Meeting
Predictive anti-drama
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a play about AI that results in a deadening disconnect for its audience
east
ALISTAR FINDLAY is mesmerised by this multiple ‘Visions of Scotland’ assault on the audience’s eyes and senses
The Star's critics ANGUS REID, ANDY HEDGECOCK and MICHAL BONCZA reviews I Am Love, The Penguin Lessons, Freaky Tales, The Thicket
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
New releases from Steve Knightley, Jupiter & Okwess, Jason Palmer, Lisa Knapp and Gerry Driver, Kin'Gongolo Kiniata, Ingrid Laubrock/Tom Rainey, Dan Sealey, Simin Tande, PAZ
Peter Mitchell's photography reveals a poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
East is South
Hampstead Theatre, London
AI IS a grim subject. And Beau Willimon’s East is South at Hampstead Theatre does nothing to alleviate the gloom.
The play is set in a light, clean but bleak interrogation room. A lone young woman communes with herself, and possibly God, seemingly unaware that figures on a balcony watch her every move. She and a fellow systems-programmer are suspected of… well, predictable things: messing with the highly intelligent, fearsomely dangerous AI beast they’ve created, anthropomorphising it, double or triple dealing with Russia and other foreign powers, having a secret affair with one another, and potentially releasing a super-intelligence into the world at large.
A thriller possibly. If so, where’s the suspense?
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