REVIEW: LA FENÊTRE by Tej Panesar at Etcetera Theatre 13 – 16 August 2026
‘Intelligent play, with very promising material.’ ★★★ ½
Gorgeous writing from Tej Panesar exploring human loneliness and the part that AI might play in the future. This is a well chosen debut production from Molonok Theatre Group and offers a new perspective on human’s interaction with humanoid robots.
It is an intelligent play, which doesn’t tell us straight away that of the two characters in the play, one isn’t human. In a discussion about philosophy, the woman (Katherine Bristow) appears to have superior arguments, to the man (Gilles Guillain). All becomes clear when we are introduced to the fact that she is AI.
The play begins with the man alone in his room, as he announces that he’s not sure that he exists. We know very early on that this is a French obsession with philosophy, but if anyone should wonder whether ‘nothing ever happens’, it certainly does. One of the best aspects of the early scenes, are the words attempting to describe the spaces ‘between’, the empty space, the lost spaces, that no one talks about.
The man says that it ‘takes him 40 minutes to become a person in the morning’. Most of us can surely relate to that. He’s broken up with his partner and in discussion with AI, he comes to terms with his loneliness and is faced with the decision of whether he should act, rather than just accept that his companion will be non human.
It’s more than one debate; one about human reliance on AI and one about how far we are willing to give up on relationships because they’re tough. The debate on AI reminds us that we have all created it, in more than the sense of technological achievement, but because it embodies all our social media posts and everything else keyed in by us online.
There is a tendency to give AI human characteristics and this play also falls in that ‘trap’, which is a little disappointing, a little too easy, and also misleading but so much is right about this play.
It isn’t only the writing which is refreshingly elegant. Director Nadia Khivrych has used a slower tempo giving particular emphasis to some areas of the play. Bristow as the humanoid robot looks perfectly natural, rather than robotic in any sense. It is in her apparent arguments, confidence and self-assurance that we see she isn’t the insecure mess that many humans are, and this superiority makes her believable as a non-human character.
Guillain as the man is also pleasing in his role. It may take a few nights to settle into the performance it could become, which is a shame because this is Camden Fringe. Short runs are the norm. There are a few issues with clunky changes of scene. The dream sequence and the physical theatre section feel a little disjointed from the rest of the play. The soundscape is very promising but possibly may need extending (or not).
A very promising debut from this Molonok Theatre Group offering something a little different. This piece could do very well indeed with more time to develop its full potential.
LA FENÊTRE,
Molonok Theatre Group,
Playing at the Etcetera Theatre
Part of Camden Fringe from 13–16 August.
BOX OFFICE https://camdenfringe.com/events/la-fenetre/
Molonok Theatre Group
instagram: https://www.instagram.com/molonok_theatre/
