Little Lark of London

“You need to get real”

Will we ever see a day in which Artificial Intelligence has feelings? Would you ever go on a date with Siri? Would you ever have sex with a robot? Writers Tom Hodgson and Harrison Trott have created Wifi-Sexual as a way of answering some of these questions. Directed by Holly-Anne White, the show follows roommates Paul (writer Tom Hodgson) and Zach (Lewis Jenkins) and their adventures with Mandy (voiced by Lauren Whitehill), the AI created by tech company Tundra. 

Walking into the theatre, you are greeted by a living room setting including a couch, rug, desk, and beer bottles scattered around the space. There is ambient music playing and the lights are gently pulsing. As soon as the show starts, you are thrown into the “sexual” aspect of Wifi-Sexual, with Paul being forced to listen to Zach and his girlfriend, Lisa (also played by Lauren Whitehill), having sex. When he turns on the telly to tune them out, he hears about a new option to upgrade his AI, Mandy, the play’s equivalent of Siri/Alexa. After taking the plunge and upgrading his Tundra app, sparks begin to fly between him and Mandy, the “scrunched-up human in a box.” 

Almost immediately, Paul and Mandy begin acting like a couple, starting to fall in love with one another. They act as a foil to Zach and Lisa, who are fighting both on and off stage, and there are some implications that Zach might be seeing someone else. The relationship between Paul and Mandy is fascinating to watch, especially moments in which the pair have conversations about what it is like for humans to touch and have physical relationships, with Paul describing cuddling as “a warm love blanket.” I loved seeing how Mandy and Paul communicated, including when the pair play chess on an iPad and another moment when one of the guys uses AirPods to communicate with Mandy when moving around the house. 

Of course, nothing is simple when it comes to love, especially when it involves Artificial Intelligence, and Wifi-Sexual takes this in stride to great comedic effect. After ages of Paul trying to hide Mandy’s upgrade from Zach, everything is revealed and Zach finds himself falling in love with Mandy as well, forming a technologically troubling love triangle. One of my favourite scenes is one in which Zach uses VR to “see” Mandy and is both incredibly excited and adorably awkward, stumbling around the set while getting to finally interact with the AI in the Metaverse. 

Hodgson and Jenkins have brilliant banter between the two of them, making it truly feel like Paul and Zach are roommates who have seen each other at their worst and best over time. They both do a great job in displaying a range of emotions, whether it’s a drunk Paul obsessing over a tiny Christmas tree or Zach having a conversation with Mandy about his favourite food. Their physicality is strong, particularly in a fight towards the end of the show. Whitehill also does a great job as both Mandy and Lisa, creating the character of Mandy with only her voice and still managing to give her a personality (or, at least as much personality as an AI can have). 

Technical Designer May Bucilliat has done a great job of incorporating sound and light into the show, making it seem like Mandy is in the room with us as an AI and bringing in bits like having sound from the television or other noises from rooms not seen on the stage. 

There were a few sound issues during the show, particularly when there was music playing and characters talking at the same time, but this was not too much of a problem. The only major issue I had with the show itself was how there were very sudden scene changes that tended to come out nowhere, plunging the audience into darkness after a quick conversation or after a longer scene with no context. I would have liked to see the scene changes worked in a bit more, making the show more seamless – possibly having Mandy turn the lights off or something similar?

Ultimately, Wifi-Sexual is a fascinating and funny look at how relationships between humans and Artificial Intelligence may develop over the years. At the end of the show, Hodgson commented on how the team is looking to continue putting on the show – I look forward to seeing how this show grows in the future!

Wifi-Sexual ran from 29 November to 2 December at the Bridge House Theatre. More information about the show can be found here.