CONTINUITY - AT THE MUMFORD
‘Fame – we’re gonna live forever…’ Remember that lyric from the 1980s pop musical? Back then the concept of everlasting life was confined to outlandish sci-fi or religious belief. Now in this age of AI, apps and billionaire tech bros, who knows if the elimination of death could become a reality? This is the theme of David Sear’s new play which opened (I hope) a new chapter in the much-missed Mumford Theatre. It was so good to see the old place again – completely unchanged from last time I saw a play there some years ago. That retro serving hatch is still there to dispense drinks and the auditorium with its 1970s chic is as ever.
The new play to re-open the Mumford, is ‘Continuity’ – a satire on the power of tech billionaires to control our poor little lives, make as much dough out of us as they can and even, one day, offer us eternal life – on subscription! Imagine paying Apple or Google a monthly fee just to stay alive.
Sear is himself from the tech entrepreneurial world and has, it seems, an insider’s view of the dangers posed by the likes of a certain Elon and the other super-rich kids in our lives. He clearly feels passionately about this as his play is suffused with anger and red-flag warnings about our subservience to the world of phones, apps, social media and eavesdropping Alexas.
We meet a man in his fifties who is in a wheelchair after, we learn, a bad motor accident. He has a stroppy sixteen-year-old son ruled by social media and glued to his screen, and a feisty wife who cares for her partner though some of the shine has gone off their long marriage. Time is of the essence here – what to do with it. The man’s mother is filling in her days playing water polo with her knitting group.
Enter into the fray an American billionaire whose company has developed a kind of stem cell therapy that will regrow a human spine but one that can be controlled via an app. Should the man in the wheelchair (first names are hardly used) accept being a guinea pig for this new tech-based miracle cure? He is promised not only the ability to walk again but to live for hundreds of years, hence ‘Continuity’. He signs the pact but hasn’t read the small print. Who does? - asks his wife. Dr Faustus made the same mistake.
If all this sounds promising it is, but I have to say that the play is in need of some rejuvenating therapy of its own. It is too long, and the characters mostly act as mouthpieces for the angry polemic being served. There are promising moments between the man (Martin Maynard) and his wife (Catherine Walston) both agonizing over the lure of a cure but one that comes with hidden costs, and ones between father and son (Reece Bond). There are many thought-provoking lines and some sharp one-liners.
That said, the play feels more like a dramatised debate. Christian Burton is excellent as the tech bro – arrogant, cunning, but ultimately evil. His energy – almost demonic – lit up the stage. The problem is that his character was too one-noted and his many long speeches (faultlessly delivered) sometimes felt more like a harangue than a developing argument.
The large stage of the Mumford was not used to its best – the set apart from some medical paraphernalia at the rear, was pretty bare and seemed at times to swallow up the actors who were often bunched up together in tight side-by-side formations. There was a really effective video backdrop of cells dividing but it was under-used and a sinister underscore made little impact.
Destined for a London run, I assume that this production is a work in progress. It deals with an important subject and has something to say. I just wished it had said it in less time. A handy blue pencil might also be utilised on an awkward ‘breaking the fourth wall’ moment that came out of the blue. There is plenty of incident in this work including a crazed priest with a firearm and a white-coated doctor who’s more Strangelove than Kildare. Yet I felt that the balance between realistic drama and agitprop satire wasn’t always carefully weighed.
All those caveats aside, it was wonderful to see the Mumford again and the appearance of a new professional local troupe is heartwarming. May they live forever or at least have some continuity.
