Review: NO SWEAT, Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse

Photo credit: Supplied by the production

Forced Entertainment’s Cold Sweat sounds somewhat bizarre from the off. Three actors perform a series of seemingly unconnected scenes, lipsyncing to dialogue delivered by AI-generated voices. What plays out on stage is confusing and, beyond a few laughs, struggles to generate an emotional response from the audience.

Cold Sweat has been conceived and devised by the company (Richard Lowdon, Claire Marshall and Terry O’Connor), alongside direction from Tim Etchells who has also provided the original text, composition and sound design.

Technically, the production is strong. Etchells’ sound design is well mixed, combining music and the AI voices well. Jim Harrison shows some creativity with his lighting design.

Generally though, the production lacks vision and cohesion. It meanders along, introducing us to a range of characters we learn little about due to the generic words spoken by the AI voices. We felt like we were waiting for the penny to drop and something profound to land - perhaps something related to AI - but it never did.

The trio of performers, the aforementioned Lowdon, Marshall and O’Connor, perform the show with great conviction. They seem to believe in the piece and are completely committed to playing these strange characters. On the whole, they lipsync to the AI voices with precision. O’Connor is particularly good at becoming different characters through shifts in her physicality and facial expressions, and Lowdon demonstrates some good comic timing.

Cold Sweat, despite being an intriguing premise, never becomes something truly interesting or engaging. It feels like something that’s trying to be profound and innovative but never quite gets there. The audience leave bemused by what they’ve just witnessed and, perhaps, what the point of the show is. The one thing we can take away is that AI can’t replicate human emotion. In life, this is a good thing  - AI isn’t coming to replace us. However, it perhaps also means we shouldn’t be staging shows where all the dialogue is delivered by AI, as we really want to engage with and relate to the characters on stage and their stories.

** Two stars

Reviewed by: Jacob Bush

Cold Sweat runs at Sheffield’s Tanya Moiseiwitsch Playhouse until 3 October, with further info here.