Theatre Programme and Review Of The New Play ANTHROPOLOGY, Starring Dakota Blue Richards (Endeavour’s Trewlove) & Abigail Thaw (Endeavour’s Dorothea Frazil).

Before I continue, in case you didn’t know, I have written a book on the Endeavour series. It has a colour (color) version, a B&W version and lastly a kindle version.

The book is only available from Amazon and can be purchased on Amazon.com. Click HERE to visit the Amazon page.

I hope this post finds you all well, mentally as well as physically.

Before the post begins please take time to read the following.

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Hello and welcome to a new post. Kim Quiddington very kindly purchased a theatre programme of the new play Anthropology and also asked Abigail Thaw to sign it, which she duly and kindly did. Unfortunately, Dakota Blue Richards was unwell so Kim was unable to get her autograph. Included in this post is a review of the play by Kim plus her thoughts on meeting Abigail Thaw.

The play is at the Hampstead Theatre until 14th October. To book tickets click on HERE.

Anthropology-A play written by Lauren Gunderson. At the Hampstead Theatre. Starring Myanna Buring as Merril. Yolanda Kettle as Raquel. Dakota Blue Richards as Angie.

Abigail Thaw as Brin. Date we saw the play. 16/09/23. The stage set is very minimal. The play starts with Merril who’s sat on the floor between 2 laptops and a female voice starts talking to her; you can’t see who it is though as it’s a AI voice. It becomes clear quite quickly that Merril has used her knowledge of programming to create a AI substitute for her sister who had died a year ago and Merril has used all her sisters (Angie) social media posts; WhatsApp posts, texts and instagrams to generate a analogue of her sister because she misses her and wants to find out what happened to her; it becomes clear that Angie disappeared on her way to meet someone.

The police were involved but to no avail with everyone thinking she’s dead. We then hear Angie’s voice telling her sister to get back with her ex girlfriend, Merril however doesn’t want to do that but the AI substitute for Angie has already sent the text to Merril’s ex girlfriend! This was a little spooky and frightening that Merril’s creation/substitution of her sister was clearly thinking for itself now and was not only self aware it was also acting of its own accord. We are then introduced to Raquel (Merril’s ex girlfriend). She knows nothing of the creation yet…..however it’s very clear that Raquel and Angie were not the best of friends. Merril admits to Raquel about creating a substitute for Angie.

There is shock at first then curiosity and Raquel talks to the AI substitute-she knows something is off as the AI is not like Angie at all as she’s too nice to her! We see Merril talking to Raquel about why they broke up and this scene ends with Merril asking Raquel to get back together-which they do. After that scene the AI says to Merril to call their Mum; this is a recurring request for a while whilst we see Raquel and Merril drink wine and have a good time. The AI ends up admitting that she’s rung their Mum! The stage is then plunged into darkness and when the lights come on again we see Angie’s and Merril’s Mum (Brin) on the stage. She says to Merril that she got her text and came as soon as she could; she has a suitcase with her but it’s not revealed where she’s going. The 2 of them chat; it’s clear there’s some tension between them over Angie’s disappearance. Merril then admits she’s created an AI substitute for Angie and asks if Brin wants to see it! Of course the answer is yes and we see Brin meeting the AI of Angie whose face is on a TV screen. Brin goes over to the screen and touches the screen and starts crying and saying how much she misses Angie and can she tell her what happened to the real Angie. It’s clear to the audience that the real Angie (who’s still presumed dead) doesn’t like her Mum but we don’t know why and the scene ends with Brin being asked to leave by Merril which she does. We then see Raquel and Merril continue to enjoy themselves and the AI is not really happy about this (this is where the characteristics of the real Angie start to come through to the AI because as mentioned earlier that Raquel and Angie didn’t get on; the AI is rude to Raquel whilst Merril is offstage). Merril enters the stage and the play then takes a sinister turn with the AI asking Merril to get Raquel to leave because if she does the AI can help Merril find out what happened to her sister. Raquel leaves and Merril is heartbroken however she has a burning desire to find out what happened to her sister. So we now have have Merril and the image of Angie on the TV screen. Then the image starts talking and you hear her voice all around the stage and see the image of Angie’s face on the screen and she’s asking Merril if she really wants to know what happened to her sister because she (the AI version) can use all the data that Merril used to create her and here’s the spooky bit-she can access voicemails that Angie left for Merril that were never received by Merril. Of course Merril is upset that she wasn’t aware of the voicemails and she asks to listen to one-we hear it too; Angie is being chased and she’s frightened; we then hear the AI say she knows what happened to Angie; we then see the walls of the stage filled with colourful images of trees; birds and grass.

The stage is plugged into darkness and when the lights go up we see the real Angie sitting on the stage! She’s on her own. Merril enters and she can’t quite believe her sister is alive. It’s clear to the audience that Angie has been through some trauma and is struggling to cope with it and it’s revealed that her Mum’s husband (Bill) (we don’t see Bill) took her. We don’t know what happened to her but obviously we know why Angie doesn’t like her Mum. Merril and Angie talk about her disappearance and how the police stopped looking because everyone else stopped looking when all the time Angie was alive and being held against her will; Angie’s clearly upset about this that everyone stopped looking. Angie is told by Merril about her AI substitute and of course Angie wants to ‘meet’ her AI self! You see the TV screen with the image of Angie’s face and Angie’s face is also projected on to the wall of the stage. Both Angie’s talk to each other. We then see Brin (their Mum) enter the room and she’s got a massive teddy bear with her and she wants to hug her real daughter as she can’t believe she’s alive (she’s unaware of what her husband has done); it’s too much for the real Angie and Brin is asked to leave; Brin is upset but goes to leave when she receives a text which she reads and she smiles and leaves the teddy bear behind. The substitute Angie admits to the real Angie that she’s been texting her Mum for a while and the real Angie is happy as this gets her Mum off her back! We see Angie crying and saying she doesn’t want to live and is messed up inside as she talks to her AI imagine (Merril is offstage) and the AI imagine says to Angie that she’s strong and can get through the trauma; we see Merril enter the stage and goes to the furthest part of the stage and she sits on the floor and we see Angie sit on the floor as far apart as possible from Merril. They talk -Angie admits she’s falling apart and Merril says to her that she’s a survivor and you see Angie thinking about this. Merril then get on her knees and she goes across the stage to Angie and they sit facing away from each other. Merril puts her hand out to Angie who takes it. The stage is plunged into darkness. End of the play.

NB. There was no interval -the play was 1 hour and 35 minutes. The audience were quiet throughout which was really good. There was an encore but not a standing ovation.

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Here is Kim’s account of meeting Abigail Thaw.

So after the play I was waiting to use the facilities when I happened to glance at a lady leaving from another door -I instantly recognised her-it was Abigail Thaw! I said “Hi” Abigail replied “Hi” I told her the play was really good and how much I had enjoyed it. She said “thank you” i then asked if she would be happy to sign two programmes (1 for me and 1 for Chris)! We walked to the foyer and I chatted to her about the event that was held At Jericho in March and she said she really enjoyed it and chatting to the audience and she remembered meeting you Chris

😊
. We spoke about Twitter and how it’s just called X! Abigail then said that the girls in the play (all 3 of them) were talking to her about Instagram. So Abigail will be going to Instagram when she gets some pictures to share! She said she’s a bit nervous about it though. I told her who I was and she said how lovely it was to meet me and to be able to put a face to my name as she sees me tagged in a lot of posts that feature her Dad. I asked her whether Dakota would be coming into the foyer; Abigail said she wasn’t sure as Dakota was not feeling well. I said I hoped she would feel better soon. After all this excitement she had to go so she could chill out. Abigail is such a lovely person and very beautiful too
😊
. I’m pinching myself that I have met her and how she made my day.

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Thank you Kim for my programme, the autograph, review and your thoughts on meeting the lovely Abigail Thaw.

I hope you all enjoyed the post.

Kind regards

Chris

In case you didn’t know, I have written a book on the Endeavour series. It has a colour (color) version, a B&W version and lastly a kindle version.

The book is only available from Amazon and can be purchased on Amazon.com. Click HERE to visit the Amazon page.

I hope this post finds you all well, mentally as well as physically.

Before the post begins please take time to read the following.

Please consider helping with the running of my website by making a donation via Paypal.

Donors without PayPal accounts can still donate using a credit or debit card.


>Also consider becoming a Patron through Patreon from as little as £5 per month. With Patreon you set up how much you wish to pay monthly. There are three tiers, $5, $10 and $15. It’s like paying for a magazine subscription.

Here is my Patreon account where you can read more about it, https://www.patreon.com/morseandlewisandendeavour

Thank you.