Review: JURY DUTY, Zoom

The present pandemic has moved everything online, so in Exit Productions's Jury Duty the Ministry of Justice have been required to relocate their trials out of the courts and into the ether. Under the Justice Act (2020) jurors are being asked to review evidence and come to an agreement from the comfort of their homes. The immersive company's latest venture is perhaps the only Zoom meeting you'll actively enjoy.

A man stands accused of murder and arson after being found fleeing the scene of a deadly fire. The participants will have to go through pages of reports and data and make up their minds cross-referencing witness accounts and individual moral inclinations in under two hours. The audience is given complete freedom to follow their instincts and urged to cooperate to build their opinion.

The forced isolation from one another and the lack of direct personal interaction makes the experience somehow more vivid in terms of ethical questioning. Are we braver when there's a screen diving us from a potential felon? When the time to speak to him comes and we get to see the person behind the data, will he make us review our position and scramble up the notions we've learnt about him?

Tom Black and Joe Ball concoct an interesting and highly entertaining experiment that turns out to be free from the bounds of lockdown. It works now, but it would also work as an interactive live game outside of the pandemic.

The practical side of the show works perfectly too, a smooth and intuitive interface guides the players through the documents and makes it look astonishingly offical. Ball is always at hand to answer any question as the Coordinator of the session, while access to the alleged criminal is carefully controlled. As it is, Jury Duty is an outstanding, inventive, and remarkably well-crafted addition to the new online theatre panorama.

Find more info on Jury Duty here.

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