Minority Report – Lyric Hammersmith, London

Writer: David Haig

Director: Max Webster

In 2038 the UK has another referendum, this time to decide whether all humans should be ‘chipped’ and monitored for pre-criminal tendencies and arrested before they can act upon them. Would you vote ‘Yes’? Adapting Philip K. Dick’s novella Minority Report rather than the Tom Cruise film, Max Webster’s production for Nottingham Playhouse transfers to the Lyric Hammersmith bringing some all-too-rare science fiction to the stage. While character and motivation are given short shrift in David Haig’s interpretation, Jon Bausor’s imaginative and immersive design admirably creates the moody and claustrophobic image of life 12 years later.

Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Pre-Crime programme, respected neuroscientist and head of the operating institute Julia Anderton has an announcement – the name of the latest person to be arrested for a murder they are destined to commit. When her own name comes out of the prompter, Julia goes on the run, working with a group of activists determined to prove that Pre-Crime is a travesty. But is this a terrible miscarriage of justice or is Julia a murderer in waiting?

It is no small task to bring an action and CGI-heavy story to the stage when elaborate stunts, chase sequences and complex future tech are difficult to reproduce in the confines of a proscenium arch. Bausor has done a remarkable job with sliding panels, rigs and grates that tilt or move, suggesting a world that is typically metal-clad but also well-lived in, and still recognisable to a 2024 audience. Combined with Tal Rosner’s video projection of human brains, rain effects and blurred cityscapes as well as Jessica Huang Han Yun’s neon-coloured lighting, the context of the play is convincingly rendered.

Webster as ever finds flow and pace in the quick-fire sequences and the in-demand director gives a sense of the running/escaping/chasing that dominates much of this adaptation. These are hampered by the small physical space and the obvious holding back of the actors in over-rehearsed kerfuffles, but the ambition of this production is admirable even if it doesn’t all come off. There is a good sense of space and scale with Julia running in circles through the city ending up back where she started, and Lucy Hind’s choreographed movement is an effective narrative tool for conveying the growing pressure.

Haig’s adaptation feels a little spartan in response, faithful and nicely updated with a female lead, but the lengthy exposition at the beginning takes time away from getting to know Julia, and, crucially, making the audience care about her. In the panic to escape and get going, too little time is invested in establishing a rounded person and someone to root for rather than a self-regarding CEO. Haig draws in Julia’s motivations later on, a twin sister whose killer escaped justice and a hint at professional difficulties with her scientist husband, but it would help to frontload the play with a little more of the personal as well as a neurological context to create investment.

Jodie McNee’s performance is consequently at a singular pitch through most of the show and once the character starts to panic, everything else gets lost in breathy fear and shouty rages about justice. It would be great to see just a little more humility and confusion as the system Julia so fervently believes in and the science she trusts comes crashing down. Other characters are similarly two-dimensional, generic activists advocating for free will and ambiguous politicians, although Tanvi Virmani has fun as visualised computer David with a nice line in sarcasm.

Brief at 90 minutes, Haig does let the ambiguities of the original story shine through with its themes about the unknowability of human nature and the extent to which instinct and impulse are ours to control. Much more could be said about how humans use science as a tool for exploitation and subjugation in all its forms, a political act disguised as an independent and ethical investigation, particularly given the outcomes of the show, but it is always interesting to push at the boundaries of what theatre can physically and technically achieve.

Runs until 18 May 2024