Static Lives – Camden Fringe / Etcetera Theatre, London

Static Lives, by Two Parachutes, is a sharp, intimate two-hander about friendship, numbness, and how we try to stay human in the digital age.

Content Warning: mentions of violence and suicide.

Static Lives

Today marks the fifth work I’ve seen as part of this year’s Camden Fringe, and the third at Etcetera Theatre. It’s also the final Camden Fringe installment for me – the Salterton Arts Review is going on another little expedition and will miss the rest of the festival. The good news is that you have until 24 August to get over to Camden (and beyond) yourself. See listings here.

What I like so much about fringe festivals is how thought-provoking they are. On Sunday I was watching a contemporary dance performance and thinking of Leigh Bowery and prehistoric yeast (no, really). We’ll get to today’s train of thought in a moment. The work under discussion is Static Lives, a two-hander written by Luke Ward and performed by Ward with co-writer Alex Braglewicz. In it, best mates Ben (Braglewicz) and Adam (Ward) wrestle with how to be good people in an age when every terrible thing is right at our fingertips.

The play opens lightly enough. Ben arrives at Adam’s place before a night out. The friendship is quickly established as they engage in the kind of banter and horseplay typical of young men. Excess testosterone, not-quite-finalised brains and all that. But the mood darkens. Adam’s withdrawn, and Ben notices. The problem centres on Adam’s job monitoring a social media algorithm. That means watching violent, sexual, or disturbing content to check it’s filtering what it should. He’s just seen something awful. And he felt nothing.

It’s that moment, that lack of feeling, that subsequently becomes the spark. Over one evening and the early hours that follow, they debate what it means to care, and whether anyone still can.

No Moral Certainty, But a Glimmer of Hope

The structure is simple but used with care. A club scene shifts the pace and gives texture. The flat becomes a pressure chamber. Conversation builds, resets, and builds again. Ward and Braglewicz handle that rhythm well. They move between deadpan jokes, quiet tension, and full-voiced confrontation with ease.

There’s no grand staging, but the physical sequences are fairly well judged. Enough movement to hold attention, without undermining the intimacy. For two creatives early in their careers, this is effective and thoughtful work. A few lines sounded more like a writer making a point than the characters reacting. But I noticed that because the characters are otherwise well developed. The dynamic is uneven, messy, lived-in.

Static Lives’ restraint left room for connection as well as projection. A few hours before seeing the show, I’d read this article about bereaved parents taking on social media platforms. One anecdote stuck: the number of teenagers who have seen a suicide online. Static Lives doesn’t reference that story, but it circles similar ground. How do you protect young people (or yourself) from the mental noise? And as friends, parents, or partners, what do we do when someone becomes numb?

The moral disorientation feels genuine. Adam isn’t horrified by what he saw. He’s horrified by the blankness. No horror. No shock. Not even guilt. Just a kind of mental static. That’s what frightens him. Ben’s reaction isn’t neat, either. He minimises, teases, deflects. The friendship holds, but it’s fraught. The play lets that tension stand.

Is there a philosophical underpinning? Sort of. There’s a drifting debate about empathy, saturation, and fatigue. At one point, Luke suggests that trying to care is enough. That maybe we can’t hold everything, but can still care in the moment. I did think of Ayn Rand for a moment, but that was a stray association. This is more about overload than ego. What happens when the circuits blow. Regardless, I was pleased to see a glimmer of hope shine through towards the end.

Under Verity Drew Firth’s direction (with Oscar Robinson as Co-Director), the pace holds steady. Ideas are allowed to land without being pinned down. Static Lives is a searching piece that doesn’t ask to be solved.

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3.5/5

Static Lives is on at the Camden Fringe until 6 August 2025 only, but is also heading to Edinburgh. More info and tickets for tonight’s performance here.