Marvellous, mind-bowing morass of ideas - Alan Ayckbourn's The Trial of Romeo Oscar opens at Scarborough's Stephen Joseph Theatre

It takes place in 2194, when humanity is scattered around the solar system.

Preparations are under way for a landmark legal case. Romeo Oscar, a military-issue android, is on trial for murder: the first non-human to be tried in a court of law.

It is not for the faint-hearted. The crime at the heart of the play is brutal. The male android is accused of stabbing to death a 13-year-old girl who was in its care. Though the audience does not witness the killing, it does not take much imagination to conjure up the circumstances.

Straight away you have the ruination of female innocence at the hands of a male, albeit a robot.

Whether or not the killing was murder, suicide – while re-enacting scenes from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – or accident is at the heart of the court case and to reveal the verdict would be … criminal.

Part courtroom drama, part morality play and part sci-fi along the lines of Bicentennial Man, The Trial of Romeo Oscar is one of Ayckbourn’s more complex and philosophical plays – and at more than two-and-a-half hours one of his longest works.

It is not the first time he has addressed the questions of hi-tech advances including Artificial Intelligence. They were also at the root of Henceforward, Comic Potential and Constant Companions.

The number of themes The Trial of Romeo Oscar addresses is mind-blowing – what is to be human? Can androids morph into human beings? are they capable of independence, love and hatred?

What is art? What will remain of arts and culture as we hurtle into a world without books, paintings and one that has forgotten playwrights and composers?

That is scratching the surface – What price war? What is history? What will become of the countryside? Will humans ever conquer space travel and establish life on other planets? Will family life cease to exist? Or will humans be ‘grown’ in laborities and nurtured by android nannies?

Those issues and more will have minds in a whirl and leave them marvelling at the intelligence of the playwright who is asking them at least to contemplate the issues facing mankind, like it or not.

The cast – Elizabeth Boag, Frances Marshall, Russell Richardson, Richard Stacey, Leigh Symonds, Hayden Wood and Olivia Woolhouse – are directed by the author.

They are all wondrous in a play full of complex ideas. Thank goodness, though, for Boag’s earthy, down-to-earth engineer whose response to the ‘big questions’ is to retire to the bar for a beer.

She grounds the play and allows the audience to hold on to her toolbelt as she navigates her way to restoring Romeo Oscar so he is fit to stand trial and she seeks to understand what is at stake.

Leigh Symonds is also marvellous as chief android Octavius – just this side of sane with his slightly jerky movements and out-of-step humour.

The Trial of Romeo Oscar is a heavyweight, mind-blowing, marvellous morass of ideas, perfectly performed with a pinpoint precision, which hurtles the audience into a future ruled equally by robots and humans. Peppered with some laugh-out-loud moments, it is not without humour or lightness of touch.

It is on at the Stephen Joseph Theatre from now until Saturday October 3.

Tickets: 01723 370541 and www.sjt.uk.com