Georgie Dettmer’s debut work assembles a mosaic of stories centred on society’s obsession with images: their creation, consumption, manipulation and abuse. Many of the narratives carry a sexual charge. At its heart is a story clearly modelled on the Gisèle Pelicot case, in which a husband drugged his wife and filmed her repeated sexual abuse by other men. Around it swirl other tales: an actress appearing in a film about that case while becoming the victim of deepfake pornography herself; a kidnapped child narrative that inevitably recalls Madeleine McCann; a supposedly scientific study of sexual response dependent on video technology; and a father using AI to alter images of his son. Framing everything are two young girls whose fascination with the material mirrors the audience's own uneasy attraction to such content. The acting is superb throughout. Maimuna Memon and Lucy McCormick display astonishing versatility, moving effortlessly between characters and emotional registers. Their transformations are so seamless that they often provide the evening's greatest source of interest. Nicholas Rowe and Billy Bolt offer equally committed performances, ensuring that even the most fleeting scenes land with conviction. The production's principal weakness is its structure. The constant intercutting between narratives soon begins to feel like a trick rather than a dramatic necessity. Just as one story starts to generate emotional investment, the focus shifts elsewhere. The result is that none of the narratives is allowed sufficient space to develop its full impact. More frustratingly, Dettmer never seems interested in exploring the issues she raises. Instead, she simply observes them. The play catalogues deepfakes, voyeurism, sexual exploitation, true-crime obsession, AI manipulation and the commodification of private suffering, but offers little sense of what these phenomena mean or how they connect beyond their existence in the same cultural landscape. Observation takes the place of argument. The work identifies problems that are already widely recognised but stops short of interrogating them or drawing any larger conclusions. It feels curiously passive, mirroring the spectatorship it depicts, as if merely placing these challenging images and situations before us is sufficient in itself. As a showcase for some exceptional performances, the production is undeniably impressive. As an attempt to grapple with the implications of our image-saturated age, it feels like a missed opportunity: sharp-eyed in what it sees, but reluctant to venture beyond observation into genuine insight.
Rated: ★★★
Reviewed by J.C.
Photo by Madeiline Penfold
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