“Why did you have to
die, Alan?”
Turing’s Test from
Made in Manchester/Dark Smile Productions is an excellent short play which
demonstrates the strengths of audio drama:
the ability to take a listener anywhere, anytime, and to probe deeply
into the human condition while doing so.
Turing’s Test is an extremely
literate and thoughtful script written by Andy Lord and Phil Collinge and
performed by Samuel Barnett as Alan Turing and Paul Kendrick as the
Machine. Far more than just a debate
about the possibility that machines can be made to think (one aspect of the
title, as the Turing Test has become a method for interrogating machine
sentience); far more than just an exploration of Turing’s contributions to
computing science and the Allied war effort; far more than just an exploration
of society vs the self and how sexuality can cloud that issue. The play combines all of these in an organic
whole, using Turing’s questions and the Machine’s non-answers to tease out the
themes rather than forcing them down your throat.
It’s appropriate, perhaps, that the first time I heard of
Alan Turing was in relation to The Turing
Test, an Eighth Doctor (Doctor Who)
novel, recommended by a friend. My
friend said, aghast, “Haven’t you ever heard of Alan Turing?” Like the Machine in Turing’s Test, I turned to the “World Wide Web” (a thinly disguised
Wikipedia definition is central to this play, showing how life mirrors art) to
find out the short and pat version of his life, which the Machine presents and Turing
refutes and/or questions. The Doctor Who reference is appropriate
because the first few minutes of this play make its themes seem to be those of
science fiction. Equally, someone
hearing the last ten minutes would insist this play is one about gay
rights. Thrillingly for a play of this
length, it uses both themes to
dovetail into each other, into a much less proselytizing exploration of fame
and self.
The coolness of the Machine and its idiotic logic (its
repetitive responses will be familiar to anyone who has ever used a computer)
contrast with its almost diabolically interrogative nature. The actor’s performance is wonderfully
pitched and assisted immeasurably by good sound effects, such as the “chugging”
noise of a pre-1980s style computing machine (familiar, once again, to viewers
of Classic Who) and the dial tone of
a modem. Turing himself is also well
portrayed and comes across as both culpable and sympathetic. His introduction is the SFX of a man choking
on a piece of poisoned apple, which has to be one of the more memorable
character entrances I can recall in audio drama.
Is Turing dying or already dead? Is the Machine in his imagination? Where does that put us, the listener? And why did
Alan Turing have to die? All of
these questions may not be satisfactorily resolved by the end of the play, but
it’s all somehow appropriate. This is
very highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment