23 February 2025
You know a show has tanked when applause is muted, there is no standing ovation and the majority of the audience look stunned into incredulity. East is South suffered that fate at the late preview I attended at Hampstead Theatre. The cast swiftly exited the stage aware that they are not in a hit show. It arrives in London DOA.
The potents looked excellent – writer Beau Willimon was Creator and Show Runner on the tautly written Kevin Spacey Netflix hit House of Cards, he is writer on the best Star Wars spin off, Andor (Disney) and an Executive Producer of Severance (Apple+). Yet his script, about ai intelligence that may have been let loose on the world by two concerned code writers is wordy, non dramatic and disappears quickly up it own black hole. It swings from chats about dark matter to notions of the universe itself creating God. Wordy. Wordy. Wordy.
Director Ellen McDougall (Watch On the Rhine – Donmar Warehouse) has assembled an excellent cast – including Luke Treadaway (always ace but here saddled with a silly Russian accent) and Kaya Scodelario (C4’s Skins, making her stage debut) – but there is little they can do to animate the leaden script.
The subject matter would make a fantastic thriller. This is not it.
A major disappointment.
