Spillikin, Arena Theatre, Wolverhampton - review

Not a carer as such, the robot is there to stimulate his mind and act as a butler. And as he learns he can trust his synthetic companion the tale becomes a heartwarming and endearing one.

On the other hand, Spillikin takes a more realistic look at the scenario. After her husband dies, Sally is left with a robot that he programmed to be just like him and keep her company when he had gone.

Yet Sally faces fresh problems, as her mind starts to become riddled with dementia. Will her new companion be the comfort her husband intended, or will its constant reminder of her past lead to the revelation of long-held secrets?

The play has two main parts. We meet modern Sally, played well and amusingly by experienced actress Judy Norman (Dr Who, Doc Martin, Casualty). She is foul-mouthed and forgetful. But it soon becomes clear the memory loss she jokes about is more serious than it first seems.

She meets Spillikin, a robotic companion created by her brainbox late husband Raymond to act, think and talk just like he did. This impressive piece of kit has to be seen to be believed. It is a £65,000 Robothespian created by Will Jackson and serves three purposes. It asks the question 'how close are we to replacing human carers with robotic equivalents?' But the same could also be asked about actors, while it also looks at the issue of abandonment and how easily it is for relatives to 'palm off' their family members and shirk their responsibilities.

It also looks at how much of a substitute synthetic interaction is for human company. At first Sally is sceptical, but grows to enjoy the time she has with Spillikin – a made-up term for her husband's degenerative illness derived from the fact he loses functionality in his hands and spills everything.

But as that bond grows she blurs the lines between fake and real Raymond, and while the tag line for the play reads 'A love story', I was left with a more sinister impression of her husband's intentions – particularly as the plot twists are revealed.

Secondly, Sally's memories are played out through flashbacks to younger versions of herself and Raymond, and the foul-mouthed acidic retorts she utters led one young member of the audience to amusingly place his fingers in his ears whenever she launched into a tirade. These younger roles are played amusingly by Hannah Stephens and Mike Tonkin Jones.

A Q&A following the show allows people to raise questions on the issues, and this means the play does exactly what it intends to. You walk away debating your theories and feelings. And with theatre screaming out for new ways to attract younger audience members and engage them this is an example of just how to do that.

By Leigh Sanders