Writer: Ihsan Kerr
Director: Andrea McKenzie
Assistant Director: Chelsea Grace
What if, an episode of Friends once proposed, you could download your mind and live for ever as a machine? That was a long time ago. Now the technology for so-called ‘grief-bots’ is closer than we imagine. It seems AI is destined to recreate elements of deceased loved ones for the bereaved, scraping the internet for their digital footprints – everything from purchasing patterns to voice samples. Only AI, as we all know, makes mistakes. And that’s where this immensely thought-provoking play comes in.
Eleanor (Lubna Kerr) reluctantly switches on the smart speaker that contains a digital version of her late husband Harold. From the outset she’s correcting the bot’s factual errors but she’s also moved by the recreation of her husband’s voice and personality. In a surprising move the play actually personifies Harold (Codge Crawford), heightening the ambivalence Eleanor feels towards this device.
Things get creepy when Harold, as an internet-enabled AI, starts to control Eleanor via both persuasion and his mastery of other devices, such as the kettle and the front door lock. On the other hand – and unlike Hal in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey – he’s essentially there to serve Eleanor. At the encouragement of her younger friend Mia (Kathryn Mowper), Eleanor asks Harold to delete aspects of his data that she doesn’t particularly care for. He simply complies. The moments when Eleanor interacts with the bot as a device and not as ‘Harold’ – and it responds accordingly – represent a big step back from the heady delusion it’s programmed to create. These abrupt shifts in tone are some of the strongest parts of Ihsan Kerr’s script.
Speaking at a recent Playwrights Studio Scotland event, he outlined the extensive thinking and research that’s gone into this remarkable production. The show is a great achievement for him and the cast, who all perform well. Lubna Kerr especially brings warmth and gravitas to the drama.
The show’s not perfect and no-one would expect that from a debut script. Some of the dialogue is rather ‘on the nose’, leaving the audience with little to do in terms of figuring out the narrative and what it means. There’s also a sub-plot that veers towards the melodramatic.
It would be fascinating to see how this might work as a solo piece (as the show poster seemed to promise), with Harold’s voice issuing from a speaker. Perhaps the tender, the creepy and the poignant moments would have the time and space to land with greater impact. In a less busy script we might get the sense, largely missing here, of the loneliness Eleanor must feel that drives the rest of the action.
Runs until 30 August 2026 (not 17 or 25) | Image: Contributed
