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Phil Hopkins
Group Travel Editor & Theatre Correspondent
@philhopkinsuk
1:27 PM 22nd June 2017
arts

Golem - Fantastic Theatre At Its Best

 
Ever felt a little guilty for thinking 'what the chuff is this going to be all about?' and then discovering that you have just watched one of the best things you've seen for many a year? I have, last night!

Harrogate Theatre's Golem, an unlikely title for something so uniquely inventive, is a dystopian fable for the twenty first century, which cleverly and satirically explores one of the great questions of the modern world: who or what is in control of technology?

In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being magically created entirely from clay or mud to heed the will of its creator, and the story goes that in the late 16th century the Rabbi of Prague even created a golem to defend the city's Jewish ghetto from anti-Semitic attacks.

Mixing live performance and music with film and animation, Golem, follows the life of extraordinarily ordinary Robert Robertson, whose life is irrevocably disrupted when he buys a golem - a creature who will improve the efficiency of his daily affairs.

But when Robert upgrades to Golem 2.0, the show asks what happens when man is no longer in control of machine.

This amazing production, by multi award-winning theatre company 1927, cleverly uses a golem to represent something supposedly there to serve its creators but which ends up running them; shall we call it Google?

We think it serves us but the truth is 'it' knows us better than we know ourselves and actually runs our lives.....like Facebook and social media generally.

The graphics and visual concept behind this show were stunning, like nothing I have seen before. The nearest my imagination can get to is to the shaky Felix the Cat cartoons I watched as a kid.

The production, originally aired at Harrogate as a work-in-development showing in 2014, now returns following performances at the Young Vic, the West End and an extensive international tour. With this production 1927 continue to challenge and satirise our misuse of technology with a tour of the UK, Europe & Asia.

Eerily relevant to our tech-obsessed world, Golem is directed and written by Suzanne Andrade, with amazing film, animation and design by Paul Barritt - who jointly won Best Designer at the 2015 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for the production.

Synchronizing live music, performance and storytelling with stunning films and animation, Golem originally had its world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in August 2014, has toured the world and even won a Critics Circle Award for its design.

This is a rare opportunity to see something unique. I urge you to go. Very, very clever theatre.

Golem runs exclusively at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday 24 June.