'More Life' review — a quietly riveting, and all-too-human, sci-fi drama which excitingly subverts expectation

Read our review of More Life, starring Alison Halstead, Helen Schlesinger and Tim McMullan, now in performances at the Royal Court to 8 March.

Life is an “accumulation of anguish”, we’re told late in More Life, in what sounds the kind of despairing précis one might associate with Chekhov’s Three Sisters, also newly (and thrillingly) arrived on the London stage this week. But part of the excitement of this production, produced by the Royal Court in conjunction with the adventuresome Kandinsky Theatre Company, are the shifts in mood across a quietly riveting piece that continually, and excitingly, subverts expectation.

On the one hand, we would seem to be in some sort of Minority Report-adjacent landscape given over to people implanted with chips and a sci-fi universe that privileges technology above all. Given the increasing incursion of AI into our lives, who’s to say that, as with the android Bridget on view here, we may not at some point have a renewed existence whose specifics are as yet unknown?

But this collaboration between Lauren Mooney and James Yeatman, the latter of whom also directs, never sacrifices the human on the altar of scientific supposition and hijinks. The show’s very title echoes the exhortation that powers Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, and More Life, in its own way, courses with an appreciation of the soul – or what is left of it as we career ever-forward into this century’s gathering strangeness.

It’s a tribute to the breadth of acting talent in this town, not to mention the burgeoning allure of the Court under current artistic director David Byrne, that six highly accomplished actors have conjoined to tell a Frankenstein story that is shot through with feeling, as well: among the more moving moments is a song from that other David Byrne – of Talking Heads fame – that is rendingly deployed near the finish.

Alison Halstead splendidly takes pride of place as the resuscitated Bridget, who has died before time in a car crash only to have awakened a half-century from now in a state both of horror and of wonder, too. Walt Whitman spoke of humankind “containing multitudes”, and so Bridget does here, as she summons voices from within in a spooky attempt to discover where this robot’s real self may actually lie. Or if there even is one.

Dan Balfour and Zac Gvi’s sound design leads an impressive array of tech credits that enliven the production aurally and visually. The orange cubicles of Shankho Chaudhuri’s design provide a welcome relief from the anodyne visual slate that tends to define such dystopian vistas, and Ryan Joseph Stafford’s lighting prompts a few jolts worthy of 2:22 A Ghost Story.

But one never loses track of the characters who locate a tonal variety that one couldn’t have anticipated. The production more than once put me in mind of the maverick troupe Complicite, so it seems logical to find a mainstay from their innovative ranks, Tim McMullan, in blissful form as Bridget’s onetime partner, Harry, who went on, following his young bride’s premature death, to marry Davina (Helen Schlesinger), herself a vibrant 80.

Given to quoting Shakespeare, Harry is self-aware enough to ask of an onlooker, “What am I like?”, which underscores the mystery informing the piece throughout. Schlesinger, decidedly youthful, fields an essential brightness amidst the prevailing biochips, and brings both wit and a keen athleticism to a part that must be a particular pleasure to perform.

Danusia Samal is both plaintive and pointed as Ghost Bridget, who manages despite her name to feel in every way present, and Marc Elliott and Lewis Mackinnon complete an ace ensemble. They are joint witnesses – architects, even – of what in some circles might be seen as advances and in others as a cry from the futuristic frontline that keeps a spectator wanting more right up to this galvanising play's richly satisfying end.

More Life is at the Royal Court to 8 March. Book More Life tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Photo credit: More Life (Photos by Helen Murray)