Review: MINORITY REPORT, Lyric Hammersmith

Stage adaptions are all the rage these days; what better story to adapt than Philip K Dick’s The Minority Report? Set in a dystopian surveillance state where omnipresent digital surveillance and brainwave-hijacking algorithms supress the essence of humanity. It ought to echo with eerie prescience in 2024 as an ever-closer prophecy for an age where AI and algorithms will dictate the minutiae of our lives.

But David Haig's new stage adaption is more like a cyberpunk-themed orgy at Printworks. Big lasers go zip. Big synth noises go zap. Somewhere in the rollercoaster-paced plot and cacophony of noise and light is the philosophy at the core - Dick’s novella. Good luck trying to disentangle it in Max Webster’s production.

In 2050s London, Julia Anderton has masterminded the technology to predict crimes before they happen. Crime has been eliminated and society flourishes. The dilemma? When she is accused of “pre-murder” she goes on the run to prove her future innocence at the cost of the system and the greater good it achieves. Or she sacrifices her life and reveals that societal harmony without crime is built on a cluster of errors that occasionally falsely imprison innocents.

So far so first year philosophy undergraduate thought experiment. Throw in a bundle of knotty relationships with a slithering politician, a dead twin sister, and an underground resistance movement and you have the recipe for a mind bogglingly campy pulp fiction thriller. So why bother trying to masquerade as being more intelligent than it is?

As for the conceptual side, Haig's adaption wants to resurrect debates about transhumanism that surfaced in the mid-90s. As technology improved exponentially the line between human and technology became ever fainter inspiring artists to conceive of a nihilistic future where what it meant to be a human came into question.

Cyberpunk and philosophy go hand in android hand. The Matrix looked to 16th century metaphysician Descartes for answers about the relationship between mind, body, and humanity. “Cogito Ergo Sum” is shouted incongruously by a trench coated anti-tech acolyte.  

Given that a future stifled by technology seems closer than ever (Elon Musk’s ‘neuralink’ is a particularly Huxleyan small step for man and giant leap into an abyss) Haig's interrogation of our relationship with technology ought to send nerve-jangling shivers through our spines. But the production’s retro Dr Who-style brand of schlocky futurism and plastic campiness blocks it from conjuring any sense of pulsating paranoia.

You can’t deny that it is an eyeball-melting romp. There’s a claustrophobic elegance to designer Jon Bausor’s forced perspective set. Metallic sheen glosses everything. A plucky Jodie Mcee as Anderton darts and dodges through a grey and neon-tinged cityscape shimmering through ethereal projections. Webster’s almost aggressively ferocious direction channels the sugar rush energy spike of a Saturday morning cartoon.

But like a cartoon there are only two dimensions. At its best Minority Report feels like a video game, but someone else is playing it. Gormless fun for a while, but a beating emotional heart is noticeably absent.

Minority Report plays at Lyric Hammersmith until 18 May

Photo Credits: Marc Brenner

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