A theatre show for three performers and a bingo machine.
The 1982 sci-fi film Bladerunner (1982) contains two memorable scenes in which private detectives interview humanoids in order to discern if they are robots or not. So advanced are the robots they are seeking that merely asking them questions is not enough to make the judgement, their physiological responses to the questions must also be measured.
It was back in 1950 that Alan Turing suggested a test for machine inteligence involving a blind interview. If you can’t tell human from machine through a process of questioning then the machine can be regarded as intelligence.
Around 1994 there was a glut of popular science books about computing, maths and artificial inteligence. Roger Penrose, in his epic of the sub-genre The Emperor’s New Mind, contains reference to an idea suggested by Douglas Hofstadter which challenges Alan Turing’s test. What if there were a book in which you could look up the answer to any question you could ask a person, could you deem the book to be inteligent?
Here Stan’s Cafe take up the thinking. This book wouldn’t be a book, it would be a vast library. Only the most significant minds would be given this treatment and the libraries might be stacked one on top of each other in a tower of knowledge. Surely Einstein’s brain would have a library but, as with all libraries, some sections would be more visited than others. Given he would have no body who would ever ask the great physicist “Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?” What would the librarians in that room do?
This was the starting point for Bingo In The House Of Babel. We decided the librarians would go mad, doubt their sanity and humanity, play games and set fire to the place. But not necessarily in that order.
This was the first Stan’s Cafe project to receive significant financial support and the first show not to feature founder member Graeme Rose on stage. Instead Graeme worked building, half burning and then fire proofing the charred library set. Our ambition here was to attempt to ‘put the money on the stage’ without losing our reclaimed aesthetic.
Our costume choices suggest that librarians of ‘Bingo’, like the royalty of Canute the King and the quasi-angels of Ocean of Storms, are living in a futuristic / mythological world which superficially resembles Britain in the 1950s. They are seen living events in virtual reality goggles (which look suspiciously like cereal boxes). They discover that they share memories. They conduct a seance, relive the burning of the library and play a crazy form of ‘personal truths bingo’, until a random sequence of numbers ends the show.
Original Programme Notes
“In this decay time of strangeness,
when so many robots walk the land with such calm,
In this time, this curious, dubious, half-time,
only ninety nine numbers remain.
Ninety nine numbers for finding lost people.”
Devised and Performed by:
Sarah Dawson
Amanda Hadingue
Ray Newe
Direction & Text: James Yarker
Voice: Graeme Rose
Music: Richard Chew with Jon Ward
Lighting & Operation: Paul Arvidson
Set: Stan’s Cafe with Lucy Freeman
Publicity Design: Simon Ford
Photography: Stan’s Cafe
Special Thanks to: Peter Fletcher, Tom Miles at BBC Sound Archives and mac.
Bingo in the House of Babel was funded by the Arts Council of Great Britain, West Midlands Arts and Birmingham City Council.
Tour Dates
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30th March – 1st April, 1994:
Moving Parts Season MAC, Birmingham -
20th April, 1994:
Putteridge High School, Luton -
22nd April, 1994:
Shaftesbury Hall, Cheltenham Co-Promoted by Prema Arts -
26th April, 1994:
Nuffield Theatre Studio, Lancaster -
27th April, 1994:
BlueCoat Arts Centre, Liverpool -
28th April, 1994:
University College, Scarborough -
30th April, 1994:
Thame Sports & Arts Centre, Oxon -
3rd May, 1994:
Theatre 95 Cergy-Pontoise, France (x2) -
31st May – 19th June, 1994:
Studio 1, BAC, London
