Review: CONDUIT

Chronic Insanity's lockdown content continues with Conduit, a riveting, touching, and fully immersive online experience. Connor has reached out to ask for some feedback on the recorded messages he wants to send his partner, whom he's currently separated from. Email after email, our correspondence with him and the videos he's shot for her unearth the heartbreaking process of grief in the digital age.

Written, directed, and performed by Joe Strickland, the production is an intimate and utterly engaging adventure. While we take on the role of Connor's best friend advising him on the next step he should take, he piques our curiosity with the delicate intricacies of their love story. We catch glimpses of who his lover is, what she likes, her disposition, and what their relationship is like as the details seep through the messages.

A rather goofy request kick-starts a journey through emotional vicinity and the uselessness of technology when we require it most. Human contact and, mostly, the absence of it highlight the purified need of acceptance and resilience. Strickland's clever approach to the material turns it into a thoroughly personal (and personalised) empathetic expedition, questioning where the line should be drawn and the ethics of learning to let go.

Connor and his struggles jump off our devices and all the exchanges feel minutely real, with Strickland managing to get the audience fully invested in Connor's narrative with excellent pace. Conduit is definitely a successful experiment for the company, who are paving the way for a new, socially distanced type of theatre. While in-person live shows could never be truly replicated with technology, Chronic Insanity are clearly onto something exceptionally cool and avant-garde with their attitude to digital media.

Conduit is available online until 5 July.

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