The Diviners – People Show 145 / Golden Goose Theatre, London

One of London’s newer pub theatres hosts one of the UK’s most established theatre companies as People Show 145: The Diviners takes over the Golden Goose Theatre.

The Diviners: People Show 145

The show opens on a simple set. A coloured square on the floor, with footstools in each corner: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. Three performers in cyan, magenta and yellow are joined by an unseen companion embodied within the black stool. As they begin to speak to each other we realise these are artificial intelligences. Only, something’s gone wrongs with these AIs. They don’t seem to be able to recall things quite as they should. They struggle to remember their own names, or to make connections to words. What’s going on here?

The Diviners is a work by People Show, a collective company of experimental theatre makers. They create devised performances, jointly created once rehearsals start. Going right back to 1966, People Show have defied traditions and expectations, making unexpected theatre in sometimes unexpected places. This is People Show 145, ie. their 145th offering.

This is my first experience of a People Show production, and I found a lot to like about it. Although it seems it’s probably quite traditional compared to some of their work (it’s in a theatre rather than a field or a phone box for a start), it is innovative. The use of media is creative and befits the subject matter, and the movement direction is top notch. Overall it’s very funny but also thoughtful enough to have you wondering AI thoughts to yourself on the way home. Which we will come onto now.

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?

Or do they try to tell jokes about Eminem running a pub? I use Philip K. Dick’s title as the heading for this section because it hits nicely on something I was pondering on the way home from Camberwell. Why is it that we anthropomorphise artificial intelligence? The Diviners is like the ultimate representation of this anthropomorphism: large language models personified and in conversation, with their own feelings, hopes and fears. Well, I was still pondering this question this morning so listened to an interesting podcast about it.

As humans, anthropomorphising is an essential part of how we interact socially with the world. We do it all the time, ascribing emotions and motivations to our pets, our Roombas and even other humans. So when we hear that the new Bing search AI has gone a bit rogue, we can’t help but ascribe it a personality and laugh at it being “a good Bing”. When I recently outsourced the task of creating a walking tour to ChatGPT, I said it was “confidently wrong” about directions. A large language model can’t be confident. Can it?

As is often the case, theatre encapsulates this better than a whole host of podcasts or thought pieces can. People Show have so perfectly brought AI as we imagine it to life, with all its imperfections. The AI characters are sweet, funny and endearing. But so confidently wrong that surely their deviations from fact will have consequences? And apparently so easily overwhelmed that they must frequently be ‘reset’ by throwing a blanket in their colour over their heads (leading to a lot of physical comedy). People Show have captured the essence of AI right now: an omniscient technology still in its toddler phase.

Final Thoughts

The Diviners is a simple production at heart: four performers (plus a special guest from the extended People Show family), and coming in at just over an hour long. While there is smart use of technology, it doesn’t feel like bells and whistles. It’s rather an enhancement to good storytelling and a mirror reflecting the emerging future back to us. The Diviners even leaves us with a few unanswered questions for good measure, like exactly why these large language models are seemingly adrift from their knowledge base. Or whether there’s a message in here about our seemingly post-truth human world, too.

The success of the format is necessarily down to Fiona Creese, Gareth Brierley, George Khan and Sadie Cook, who conceived, wrote, created and performed The Diviners. They have great comic timing, keeping the audience laughing throughout. The fight direction by Vincent Keane is also splendid: it includes what must be either the first or the best cartwheel performed by an artificial intelligence. And I must call out the technical wizardry by Nigel Edwards, as George Khan’s disembodied black box integrated seamlessly into the performance.

I highly recommend The Diviners. People Show 145 is witty, touching, and thought-provoking. Don’t let its short running time and simple staging fool you: this is a piece of theatre which has already wormed its way into my brain.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

The Diviners on until 28 October 2023