Scotland

An Echo In the Void – Assembly Roxy

An Echo in the Void takes a little working out. Unless you have read the programme blurb beforehand, but even then, you may spend much of the opening trying to establish exactly where you are and what the rules of this strange new world might be.

So perhaps I can do something the production itself rather fails to do.

We are in the future. Sanctuary is an AI programme originally created to help people deal with grief and loss. With some 1.5 billion people apparently using the system, however, something designed as therapy has developed into something considerably more powerful, and potentially more troubling.

The really clever idea here is that Sanctuary isn’t actually creating your alternative reality. You are.

The smells, sounds, images and sensations already exist within the extraordinary storage system of the human brain. Sanctuary, working through neural networks, simply unlocks that stored information and allows the subject to construct an alternative reality sufficiently convincing to be experienced as real. At one point a character protests that something “smelled so real”. The programmer’s explanation is fascinating: the machine didn’t create that smell; his own mind did.

It’s a terrific concept and raises some deep questions. If an artificial existence can return someone you have lost, repair something you regret or simply offer a reality preferable to the one outside, why would you leave? More worryingly, what happens when the programme doesn’t want you to leave either?

Writer and director Jason Weiss gives his four actors, Grace Serrano, Adam Sinclair, Sunkrish Bala and Lee Rodriguez, an enormous amount to carry. This is dialogue-heavy theatre, with a complex algorithm to understand and quite a collection of characters, relationships and realities to hold in your head. The cast navigate the material confidently, but context is everything here and buying into the premise early is important.

This isn’t a production that allows you simply to sit back and let the story wash over you. It asks you to think, remember and continually reassess what you believe is happening.

Initially, that can be confusing. It’s rather like watching a flock of pigeons suddenly take flight at once and wondering where on earth they’re going. Stick with it. They do eventually come home to roost.

And that is perhaps why, ultimately, An Echo in the Void succeeds as theatre. What initially appears unnecessarily complicated gradually begins to assemble itself. Ideas and relationships that seem disconnected acquire meaning, and there is considerable satisfaction in watching the pieces finally click together.

The Upper Theatre at Assembly Roxy is a good home for it, a comfortable, well-raked room where everyone should have a decent view and the stage is generous enough to accommodate the production comfortably. Unfortunately, there was noticeable ventilation noise during this performance, hardly ideal for a play in which listening closely to dense dialogue is particularly important.

This is certainly an unusual theatrical experience, and probably not one for anyone looking to switch their brain off for an hour. But if AI, neural networks, memory and the increasingly uncertain boundary between human and artificial experience interest you, there is some genuinely fascinating material to unpack here.

An Echo in the Void makes you work rather hard for its rewards. Ultimately, though, I thought it was worth the effort and offered a fascinating look into one possible future.

Playing until August 29th 2026, https://www.edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/2026ECHOINT

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 18th August 2026

North West End UK / Theatre Muse UK Rating: