Athena Stevens and Ché Walker in Diagnosis at the Finborough. © Alex WaltonOn entering the intimate space, we are confronted with a camera which shows us ourselves, relayed onto a screen above. Once things get underway, the camera is moved to the side where it serves to record an interrogation of a woman wheelchair user who has been brought in from a nitrous bar in Villiers Street. We are evidently a few years into the future. She is agitated. The rookie constable (Ted Walliker) is dismissive of her protestations, saying that she has punched someone and been disorderly due to being deleted, or out of it. He leaves her with the senior officer who is responsible for complying with the onerous bureaucracy of Public Oversight Code 22 (PO-22). As the process begins, he indicates to the audience that we serve as a collective independent public witness, able to ask questions but not interfere with proceedings from behind the mirrored screen!
Athena Stevens both wrote and performs in the play as S/he, alongside Ché Walker the director, who plays Officer. In it, there is a suggestion that she possesses an ability to visualise information above the heads of individuals whose time may be coming to an end either through illness or an accident. Through her remote work as a drone operator assessing tunnel integrity in the Underground system, she views any cracks or water seeping as a potential risk hazard and a threat to those tube workers in her care. Care of vulnerable individuals is a common thread which is repeated throughout the play. Her previous rants and warnings have caused disquiet with her employer and so her night out was ostensibly a bid to relieve stress. Instead, she encountered a man about to date rape his companion. Hence the punch which lands her in police custody.
Given the production’s small scale and the Damoclean nature of imminent threat relayed through her anxiety and the police walkie-talkie conversations, the play wields considerable power to disconcert as it touches on its themes. The feel is almost something akin to M. Night Shyamalan and the final sequence, when it arrives, manages to be effective whilst cognisant of the limitations inherent in the space.
