Framed by the lens of the intrusive and boundary-breaking rise of artificial intelligence, The Shadow Whose Prey Becomes the Hunter by Back to Back Theatre serves as a wake-up call on how non-disabled people alienate people who have what are referred to in Australia as ‘intellectual disabilities’.
WATCH: Access All Areas & Disability Arts Online are transforming leadership in the arts
Access All Areas and Disability Arts Online brought together an outstanding group of talented and innovative arts leaders to London’s Battersea Arts Centre for a unique event to reconsider and transform the cultural industries’ approach to accessibility and inclusion.
‘A panto mashup of mayhem, song & storytelling’: SLEEPING BEAUTY & THE BEAST – Battersea Arts Centre
Following the success of 2019 ‘slumber party panto’ Goldilocks and the Three Musketeers, Sleeping Trees are back for a live residency of mayhem, song, and storytelling in the Council Chamber at Battersea Arts Centre.
‘Absurd & often poignant gig’: Life: LIVE! – Battersea Arts Centre
Lucy McCormick’s show Life: LIVE! is a powerful social commentary that prompts rethinking on the expectations we have of those in the spotlight.
‘Formulated with warmth & deep heartfelt compassion’: FROM ME TO US – Battersea Arts Centre (Online review) ★★★★
From Me To Us by Wayne Steven Jackson is part of the Battersea Arts Centre’s season Wild Times which is available to stream between 10-16 May 2021.
‘Straight from the heart’: FROM ME TO US – Battersea Arts Centre (Online review) ★★★★
Wayne Steven Jackson’s one man show From Me To Us is a thoughtful and insightful look at parenting and how laws have been changed to allow for single father surrogacy.
‘Poignant. Hopeful. Honest’: Wayne Steven Jackson brings his show From Me To Us to BAC
Love London Love Culture chatted to Wayne Stephen Jackson about bringing his show From Me To Us to the Battersea Arts Centre, available to watch from 10-16 May.
NEWS: Battersea Arts Centre launches spring season with new Pay What You Can pricing model
Battersea Arts Centre announces a season of groundbreaking and playful work (April to July 2021) which explores fresh ways of living differently and sharing experiences.
NEWS: Finalists announced for new online theatre award OnComm
Since the start of the Covid pandemic closures in 2020, many independent, alternative and fringe theatre venues and companies across the UK and beyond responded to the challenges of lockdowns by taking their shows online – and OffWestEnd has responded to this whole new strand of theatre by launching a new award, the OnComm, for the best of this new stream of online theatre.
NEWS: OffWestEnd announces 47 finalists for its Offies Awards 2021
OffWestEnd announces 47 finalists for its Offies Awards 2021, across 15 categories, covering 24 venues across London.
NEWS: Winners announced for The Stage Debut Awards 2020
Newcomer Sam Tutty scooped two awards for his star-making performance in the hit West End musical Dear Evan Hansen at The Stage Debut Awards 2020. The awards were presented as a virtual ceremony filmed at London’s Theatre Royal Haymarket.
‘An honour to have shared the experience’: AUTOREVERSE – Battersea Arts Centre ★★★★
The combination of Argentinian history told through a collection of recorded tape cassettes from her family archives, Florencia Cordeu explores how her family identified what and where home was after they fled Argentina for a new life in Chile.
‘It is theatre that sends a powerful message’: QUEENS OF SHEBA – Touring ★★★★★
Queens of Sheba is a play of contrasts it is angry and joyous, fun and sad, quietly contemplative and in your face loud.
‘Compelling, piece of engaged political theatre’: TROJAN HORSE – Battersea Arts Centre & Touring
This touring production of Trojan Horse, a verbatim theatre piece about the Birmingham schools scandal, is absorbingly polemical and moving.
‘Questions bandied about with gleeful nihilism’: THE FUTURE – Battersea Arts Centre
In The Future, Little Bulb has drawn on research from the finest minds in science, mathematics and philosophy to look at the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the impact it could have on us.
‘Naturally engages the audience’s empathy’: WOKE – Battersea Arts Centre ★★★★
Written and performed by Apphia Campbell, Woke connects the experiences of the civil rights movement in the 1960s-70s with events of the present day.
‘The eccentric inventiveness is thoroughly entertaining’: THE FUTURE – Battersea Arts Centre
The eccentric inventiveness of what Little Bulb has done is thoroughly entertaining.
Little Bulb Theatre: The Future, Battersea Arts Centre 2019. Photo: Adam Trigg
I loved Little Bulb Theatre’s last production Orpheus so much I saw it twice, so I was really excited to see their new work The Future.
It projects us into the world of three scientists who, with the help of a compere/conductor/presenter (Clare Beresford), explore super intelligence – AI – and the impact it will have on humanity.
This being Little Bulb their take is executed with quirkiness, music and song.
The scientists wear tinfoil on their heads and have an idiosyncratic way of talking that manages to be nerdy, dry and humorous all at the same time. Shamira Turner is particularly brilliant in her style of delivery.
Living with super intelligence
AI is represented by a box on a stand – the genie contained – and the play (and it’s rock-inflected songs) explore the good and bad of living with super intelligence.
Scenarios and presentations are played out by the scientists in their own quirky style of fun and you find yourself laughing at them just as much as with.
Little Bulb Theatre: The Future, Battersea Arts Centre 2019. Photo: Adam Trigg
Sometimes points are embellished with songs which, hand on heart, I didn’t like much. It’s a personal thing, I find it hard to engage with narrative delivered in this way and musical theatre does have a tendency to make me cringe. Sorry.
It did temper my enjoyment, but there was a lot I did like, the eccentric inventiveness of what Little Bulb has done is thoroughly entertaining.
Artificial intelligence is a meaty topic and not one that is going to be properly explored and challenged in 60 minutes but The Future touches on some interesting aspects of the debate, creating a platform for further discussion.
Little Bulb Theatre: The Future, Battersea Arts Centre 2019. Photo: Adam Trigg
All the characters in the play are based on real scientists with some dramatic license and we are left with a selection of their written works,which inspired the piece, to peruse.
See The Future at Battersea Arts Centre until June 29th.
It’s 60 minutes without an interval and it gets ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ for inventiveness and fun but ⭐️⭐️ for the songs.
You might also like to read:
My review of Little Bulb’s Orpheus
Fringe review: Woke, Battersea Arts Centre, a powerful look at American civil rights activism now and in the 70s.
From the archives: Remembering the travellator in the Young Vic’s production of Joseph K with Rory Kinnear.
And more about Little Bulb Theatre.
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‘The writing is vivid & alive’: WOKE – Battersea Arts Centre ★★★★
Apphia Campbell gives a powerful and engaging performance in Woke at Battersea Arts Centre and the play’s message about how much hasn’t changed is firmly nailed to the mast.
‘Roars with generations of unheard black voices’: WOKE – Battersea Arts Centre
Apphia Campbell performs the two central characters in Woke at Battersea Arts Centre, embodying their passion and anger through storytelling and song, in this lightning-strike of a show.
PHOTOS & VIDEOS: More on the making of Dante or Die’s User Not Found
Only a few more chances to see Dante or Die’s acclaimed site-specific, one-man play User Not Found, running at The CoffeeWorks Project next to Battersea Power Station until this Sunday 2 June 2019. Have you been following our behind-the-scenes video series? Time to get booking before it’s too late!