Man v machine proves compelling

THE MACHINE (MIF, Campfield Market Hall, Manchester)
NOT many people get excited about chess. Even more fail to get a thrill from computers. But back in 1997, when grandmaster Garry Kasparov took on the machine Deep Blue, the world was on tenterhooks.

Matt Charman’s play, part of the Manchester International Festival, recreates this meeting, billed as the ultimate showdown between man and machine. The venue is perfect, arranged like a boxing ring, with huge video screens, flashback scenes and TV cameras augmenting the live action.

You don’t need to know anything about chess to enjoy the show — the nerd quotient is vastly outweighed by the comedy. It would have been easy to make this an ultra-serious, even chilling, exploration of artificial intelligence, but director Josie Rourke has chosen to keep it mostly light-hearted and fast-moving.

Hadley Fraser was superb as Kasparov. Not only did he look and talk the part, but had his mannerisms down pat. Excellent performances were also given by Francesca Annis, a good old-fashioned Soviet battle axe of a mother, and by Kenneth Lee as Deep Blue mastermind Feng-Hsiung Hsu, everything you imagine a computer geek to be.

The play itself is inconclusive. Although Kasparov memorably lost the series, it seems he could have won if he hadn’t ignored a couple of obvious moves. Whether Deep Blue could really think for itself, or was just a marketing tool for its makers IBM, is also left unresolved.

The production runs until July 21.