Instructions for Correct Assembly (Royal Court)

No loud noises as far as I can remember. Other than the sound of the stage hands getting stuff on and off the travelators of course. Mind you, Jane Horrocks struggled once or twice herself so I didn't hold it against them.

According to the RC website the show runs at 110mins with no interval. Is this correct?

Do you get to the last few minutes and realise that there’s a part missing?

Hoping they might trim ten minutes off tonight! My bladder starts to struggle at this length of performance without interval!

Was there tonight and echo Ryan's opinion. And they are still yanking that ironing board off - made me laugh.

It's perfectly pleasant, there's lots to look at design-wise, some good lines and engaging performances. But it's a bit bonkers - not always in a good way. They do these funny little jumpy steps during some transitions; there are a couple of meaningless movement sequences and some odd directorial choices. Brian Vernel is wonderful - particularly in the dinner party scene - the play didn't really have anywhere to go after that. The logic of the play seemed a bit muddy, but there were some astute points (do we shape our children?) and I think it would be a great play to bring A-level/university students to - lots to discuss.

On a side note - one of the themes is about things being broken. We received an email telling us that the theatre's lift was being repaired and when we got to the theatre the printer was broken and they couldn't print the tickets (they had to write them out by hand!) So that was all a bit meta.

Also there tonight. B3 in the Dress Circle was a bargain for £15 on under 26 ticket!

I agree with what is said above. I really did enjoy this. It made me want to phone my mum and tell her I miss her (I live away from home) It was lovely to see Brian Vernel in a terrific performance. I've seen him in different things a while ago back in Glasgow and he's really come along!

It started about five minutes late and ended up around 1hr 45 mins long. I was engaged throughout and didn't feel that it was overly long. Perhaps one short scene could be cut.

Was also there last night, a night for the badges.

I agree it was muddled and found the jumping / shuffling/ dancing / whatever you want to call it irritating. Brian Vernel is brilliant, though and makes the evening worthwhile.

There last night. It's fine, but it's not great. It feels like he's re hashing a lot of old ground with the robots taking "human" role. Black Mirror and umpteen tv shows have done this.

The performances are good. Brian Vernal gets some great moments. The problem is repetition: especially with the comedy, he repeats the same "joke", ie robot learning the ways of the human. The audience lapped it up though, especially in the "invite the neighbours around dinner scene" where it all goes craaaazy... We want it to go somewhere beyond what we've seen, and it never does. For 1hr 50mins.

What he's failed to do in his writing is really dig deep. If this couple were replacing their son with a robot version, we want to see the despair and the real grief when the reality strikes that this can't replace what they've lost. We kept waiting for a, maybe cliched, breakdown scene where the mum or dad would do this. But nothing. We felt there were never any scenes where their loss was honestly felt or shown.

As a result it all bumbles along for the first 30mins, and then just repeats itself until the end.

If you've seen Humans, Black Mirror, Electric Dreams, etc no need to rush. Pleasant.

I found the scene with the train set quite poignant...especially in the moment when the Harry tells Jån to leave the other train set alone. I felt that overall the play didn’t really dig deep into the parent’s emotions but there were moments when I felt Harry’s grief for what had happened with his son in isolation to the rest of the action.

The "shuffling" is an attempt to make it look as though the actors are on a conveyor belt. When dancers do this it is incredible.  I saw a performance piece by DV8 where they did it and it was jaw dropping because the dancers looked as though they were gliding across the stage - their movements were so smooth that you didn't see the "shuffling".  I think they should have cut this from IFCA because the actors don't have the physical skill and it just looks awkward. EDIT: I'm now wondering if they mean for it to look awkward like that, making some sort of comment about robotic humans or human robots (jeez, no matter how much I try to make sense of it, the shuffling still doesn't work).

We saw this play at yesterday's matinee and enjoyed it. But does anyone know why they cut out about 6 pages of dialogue from the published script toward the end of the play (from p86 to p93)? This meant we lost some context and it did feel like a cut and paste job. Was it just at that specific performance? We sensed something had been missed out and when we read the play on the train home we found out why ! Any ideas ?

When we saw it in previews I noticed this too (after looking through the playtext) The play also ran more than five minutes under the published running time. Maybe cut in one of the very first previews?

As well as the likely explanation of "they changed their mind", possibly a post-modern joke, where there's always a spare bit after you've done the self-assembly with something left over... Is is spare, or have you missed a vital bit?

Despite the mixed reviews, looking forward to this play in a couple weeks' time.