Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre
Ian Farnell
Metheun Drama
ISBN: 9781350394339 (hardback)
ISBN: 9781350394353 (ePDF)
ISBN: 9781350394360 (ebook)
216 pages
Review author: Paul Johnson
The author states in the introduction that, ‘There is no science fiction theatre’ (15). There has been, however, a growing body of scholarship in recent years exploring the intersections between contemporary theatre and speculative genres, alongside renewed critical attention to how theatre engages with futurity, technology, precarity and ecological crisis. Within this context, Ian Farnell’s Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre makes a timely and substantial contribution. Positioned within Methuen Drama’s Engage series, the book sets out to challenge long-standing assumptions that science fiction is somehow peripheral, ‘uncool,’ or aesthetically incompatible with serious theatrical practice; instead arguing that science fiction has become a vital mode through which contemporary British theatre interrogates urgent social, political and cultural questions.
Farnell’s central intervention is to reframe science fiction not as a marginal or novelty genre within theatre, but as a dynamic imaginative framework that enables practitioners to (quoting Fredric Jameson) ‘read the present as history’ and to stage speculative futures as a means of critically engaging with the contemporary moment. Drawing on a wide range of British productions, mainly from the early 2000s to the present, but with a couple of throwbacks, such as Čapek’s R.U.R. from 1921, the book demonstrates how science-fictional tropes and dramaturgies have become embedded across mainstream and experimental British theatre, from national institutions and major new writing venues to touring and collaborative companies. In doing so, Farnell effectively dismantles the narrative that science fiction is best suited to screen media, removing that as a point of competition, showing instead how live performance offers distinctive embodied, affective and political possibilities.
Structured around four themes (post-apocalypse, androids, cyberpunk and dystopia) the book offers a clear and coherent framework through which to examine the range of ways that science fiction can operate theatrically. These categories function less as rigid taxonomies than as productive critical tools, allowing Farnell to trace recurring concerns with ruin, posthumanism, transhumanism and precarity across a diverse body of work. The analysis ranges across plays from Alistair McDowall, Caryl Churchill, Dawn King, Anne Washburn and Ella Road, alongside work by companies such as Kiln Ensemble (not the building that took the same name), Stan’s Cafe, RashDash and Unlimited, and Knaive Theatre. This breadth is effective and make the book work well for readers interested in contemporary British performance and theatre.
One of the book’s key strengths lies in its consistent insistence on the political efficacy of science fiction on stage. Farnell draws productively on traditions of science fiction theory including Darko Suvin’s concept of cognitive estrangement and Donna Haraway’s cyborg, while grounding these frameworks in close readings of performance practices. Rather than treating science fiction as a purely representational or aesthetic mode, the book foregrounds its capacity to stage embodied encounters with technological change, social collapse and ideological futures. In this sense, Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre aligns speculative dramaturgy with broader traditions of politically engaged theatre, positioning science fiction as a contemporary strategy for critical realism rather than as any kind of retreat into fantasy.
Science Fiction and Contemporary British Theatre is an impressive, carefully argued and highly readable study that succeeds in showing how effective science fiction can be within contemporary British performance. One of its principal strengths lies in the way Farnell consistently foregrounds theatricality through embodiment, liveness and affect, rather than treating theatre as a secondary or inferior medium in relation to science fiction literature and cinema. In doing so, the book makes a persuasive case for the distinctive contributions that live performance brings to speculative thinking, particularly in its capacity to stage ethical, emotional and political encounters with technological and social change. The breadth of case studies is another strength. Farnell’s selection ranges widely, offering a representative and nuanced snapshot of how science fiction operates across different sectors of British theatre. The analyses are grounded in close engagement with performance practice while remaining theoretically informed, making the book accessible to both scholars and practitioners. The thematic organisation into post-apocalypse, androids, cyberpunk and dystopia provides a clear structure without becoming overly rigid, allowing plays to resonate across categories and encouraging readers to think comparatively. Farnell is clear that several of these case studies could have been productively located in other sections.
At times, readers may wish for more sustained engagement with audience reception, production contexts or international comparative perspectives, particularly given the increasingly transnational circulation of science-fictional aesthetics. In addition, some of the recent developments in AI, for example, or American politics, might make some small sections seem like messages from a distant past. However, these are minor limitations in a study with a clear focus on contemporary British theatre and whose depth of analysis within that context is consistently strong.
Overall, Farnell’s book makes a significant contribution to theatre and performance studies, science fiction studies and contemporary British drama scholarship. It is elegantly written, elegiac at times, and Farnell’s personal engagement with the work comes through clearly. I enjoyed reading illuminating analyses of companies and productions I was familiar with, as well as discovering work of which I was previously unaware. It will be of great value to researchers, students and practitioners interested in speculative fiction, theatre and technology, and the cultural politics of futurity. More broadly, it offers a compelling argument for understanding science fiction not as escapism, but as one of the most urgent and politically engaged modes through which contemporary theatre imagines and contests the futures we are already in the process of making.
