Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Low Down
“A newly devised piece focusing on the relationship between human beings and artificial intelligence. The performance follows a politician named Jane, whose life crumbles when she becomes the victim of deepfaked porn. This causes Jane to isolate herself from the world, taking comfort in an AI chatbot – who she affectionately names Romeo. The performance focuses on the progression of their relationship as it takes on a more romantic nature, and confronts the risk of replacing human connection with AI. Eventually Jane is forced to chose between her real life and her new, idealised virtual life.”
Review
in this devised piece of science fiction theatre, the scenario explored in Romeo and I is closer to our present times than you might think. At the heart of this short play is the exploration of what it means to have an AI companion. There are three performers and I won’t do a spoiler alert in this review in case you ge the chance to see it. It certainly exmaines the shadow side of AI and the risks that asy be all too real, especially with recent news stories of AIs hecking into corporations and other AIs.
It is a well researched piece, achieving plausibility and the packed out appreciated the strong central performances, the clever way the temptation of, and even addiction to AI is realised on stage. This show, running at 25 minutes is akin to a short story and that is fine. It needed no more time to create its impact. A nice little shocker.
Comparisons with Black Mirrpr are clear and there is scope to look more deeply into other aspects of the advent of AI ompanions. For example. how AI also is biased in terms of doversity. That is not a criticism, but it does point to how this impressive short piece could develop further.
Strong acting, a well penned script with realistic dialogue, the cast are fully committed and the voiceover serves the piece well.
Overall this is an accomplished theatre production from a company confronting a timely issue which is a genuine challenge to our times and how we engage with the digital age. There certainly is scope for a longer version and further exploration of the central theme. As it is, it is a short story play well worth seeing.
