Feel Good is a new dark comedy drama about male loneliness and AI, written by Amy Conway and directed by Ben Standish.
Henry (Sam Stopford) has never quite gotten over his ex-girlfriend Liz, so he is shocked to find her on his doorstep eight years after they have broken up. Except, it’s not exactly her. It’s an “intimate companion” (sex robot) that has been created in her image and programmed with Liz’s mannerisms.
Anna Russell-Martin is exceptional as Liz. Her wooden movements, direct manner and vacant expression mean that it clicks right away for the audience that she isn’t human.
It transpires that her arrival is no accident, and robot Liz is the result of some late-night drunken internet activity from Henry. As Liz runs down through some of her features its clear the moment that Henry’s mindset switches from “this is too weird” to “this might be the ideal solution…”. Robot Liz has compliance settings so she can be made more agreeable.
There’s an even darker and more horrifying turn in Feel Good as Henry grows increasingly possessive over his new toy, but it feels like we don’t have enough time to fully explore that. Henry is keen to be seen as a “nice guy”, but when things don’t go his way we see the rage start to bubble over. Sam Stopford is great in this role as he switches from someone you feel sorry for to someone deeply unlikeable.
Feel Good is a unique piece of theatre: it is very funny but also utterly grim in its look at what might be in our not-too-distant future.
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