Joe Sellman-Leava to Bring COPYCAT To The Edinburgh Fringe
Performances will run from August 5-31.
Does AI spell the end of humanity or the dawn of a new utopia? Fringe First winner Joe Sellman-Leava (Labels; Fanboy) might be a technophobe, but he's determined to find out - using innovative design and a whirlwind of uncanny impressions.
From award-winning company Worklight Theatre, Copycat is written and performed by Joe Sellman-Leava, developed with and directed by Katharina Reinthaller, and designed by Dylan Howells. This new show explores imitation, AI, creativity, and democracy. Impersonating Big Tech overlords, former teachers and celebrities, Joe examines imitation as both a tool for connection and a stepping stone to originality.
Drawing on personal experience of AI already disrupting the work of screenwriters and artists, the show connects professional uncertainty to wider societal disruption caused by technological change.
Copycat explores how teachers nurture creativity, not just information retention. Set in a school in the mid-noughties, students are wrestling between conformity and individuality, life is on the cusp of a social media explosion and the world is caught between optimism and growing uncertainty. With impressions and audience interaction, inspired by classroom drama games, Copycat tells the story of how Big Tech CEOs are reshaping society, politics and reality itself.
Copycat also confronts the alarming relationship between Big Tech and authoritarianism. Geoffrey Hinton, often called the 'godfather of AI', has warned that the technology is being developed "at a time when the world is moving towards authoritarianism" and is continually pushing for stricter controls on the technology he pioneered.
This striking new cross-genre play is both a personal and political exploration of how technology shapes us in a rapidly changing world.
Joe Sellman-Leava says, Tech optimists say AI will revolutionise healthcare, solve climate change, and free us from work. But many of us are already seeing it threaten jobs, disrupt society, and strain democracy. Copycat is my attempt to make sense of that - to ask whether AI is as hopeful or as dangerous as we're told.
Alongside Copycat's debut, Joe Sellman-Leava is also returning to Pleasance this year with critically acclaimed political comedy It's The Economy, Stupid! Which will run from 25th-31st August at Pleasance's King Dome.
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