Disruption at Park Theatre Finsbury Park

The American writer and entrepreneur fashions a darkly comic tale of three thirty-something New York couples, who meet at the invitation of old college friend Nick.

He's a Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur who has made a pile, they are aspirational professionals with a dose of the wannabe hipster.

They are doing well enough, but the offer that Nick is about to make them could change their lives.

The cast of Disruption at Park Theatre (Image: Pamela Raith)

Oliver Alvin-Wilson’s Nick oozes alpha male testosterone: one minute an avuncular, regular sort of guy, albeit with a penchant for name dropping, the next a challenging bully.

His skill is to spot an opportunity and sell it on, and he offers them ground floor access to a project that he is developing with Raven (Sasha Desouza-Willock) that will be the Next Big Thing in AI. It offers to guide people through big life decisions better than they can manage themselves, and Nick exploits their insecurities and dreams in a demonstration of the power of the algorithm to net an even bigger fish.

It's an excellent ensemble effort, short scenes reflect the attention span of the digital native, and the snappy, often funny dialogue, paints a picture of six vulnerable individuals who are not always honest with each other or themselves.

The cast deliver snappy often funny dialogue. (Image: Pamela Raith)

The Black Mirror style theme is reflected in a high tech Big Brother set dominated by a massive screen with occasional projections. Sitting side-on, I only realised post-interval the importance of being able to see and read what was on it. Some tinkering with the sightlines here wouldn't go amiss.

Much of Stein's ground - the Faustian pact, questions of free will and determinism - has already been covered elsewhere.

But the energy of the cast is compelling, and the unnerving provocative set up is a great conversation opener on what all our futures might look like.

Disruption runs at Park Theatre until August 5. (Image: Pamela Raith)

Disruption runs at Park Theatre, Finsbury Park until August 5.