|
|
Comic
Potential
by Alan Ayckbourn
18 - 23 March
'Comic Potential' is set in the foreseeable future when everything has changed except human nature; a future where TV soaps are performed by android actors emotionally programmed by the control room. One, JC31333, finds herself humanised as Jacie Triplethree, complete with a sense of humour. Adam, a young scriptwriter, falls for her with hilarious and heartbreaking results. "Like all serious comedies, Comic Potential hurts you with the sheer exuberance of its laughter and liberates you with its seriousness… the master of Scarborough is still on top form" Sunday Times.
Producers notes about the play and production
In several recent plays Alan Ayckbourne has adopted a futuristic theme in which to deploy his characteristic comedy. For my money, as an Ayckbourne addict, Comic Potential - his fifty-third play overall - is probably the best of these. It has been available to the non-professional stage only since the beginning of the year, and we are amongst the first, if not the first, of the non-professional theatres to stage it.
Set in the not too distant future, the plot revolves around the machinations of managers and programme makers at a minor regional TV company, where a serialised TV 'soap' is being made. Instead of actors the company uses male and female android actors (or 'actoids') - life-like robots which are programmed to play their parts, and carry extensive memories of earlier performances. Technologically superb though they are, they are not always as well behaved as their human masters in the control suite would wish. The unthinkable happens when actoid JCF 31333 begins to take on a personality of her own, not to mention a burgeoning sense of humour (which presumably also accounts for the title of the play). Whilst attracting the attentions of a young scriptwriter, she develops a worryingly independent turn of mind to threaten the upper echelons of the company.
I leave it to your own judgement whether the typical 'soap' on our present day TV screens would be improved by the use of 'actoids' - perhaps Ayckbourne has his own view on that. But let me reassure you that we expect our very human actors at the Playhouse to be in demand for some time. As the blurb says, 'a comedy set in the foreseeable future when everything except human nature has changed'.
Ian MacDonald
|
|
|
If you arrived at
this page from a search engine or direct link © Erith Theatre Guild Ltd 2004-2009 |