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A morality tale for the YouTube generation, Follow/Unfollow explores the corrupting influence of fame on a trio of video bloggers: the hunky but vacuous Ryan, the washed-up activist Dee and the 15-year-old Chloe, a new kid on the block who aspires to be “#relevant”.  There are a few striking plot twists and some good use of video, but overall this is a play that has still to find its voice.

The phenomenon of “vlogging” is certainly ripe for examination.  Empowered by the effortless reach of the Internet, successful YouTube vloggers gather hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans, achieving fame with a speed that previous generations can only envy.  Some vloggers have a theme – the latest computer games, let’s say – while others rely on sheer force of personality to bring their viewers back.  Played by the charismatic Jay Podmore, it seems that central character Ryan is in the latter category; Follow/Unfollow opens with him recording a piece to camera, describing his daily life and shamelessly plugging a sponsored product.

Alongside the three actors live on stage, we see video segments of fans’ responses to Ryan – themselves uploaded, presumably, to YouTube.  It’s a neat device, but the interventions feel disconnected somehow, with little sense of the chaotic and uncontrollable conversation which defines social media.  Still, the video sections are a recurring highlight: Trevor Fleming is a well-judged presence as a lonely gay man surrounded by infatuated teenage girls, while Josie Sedgwick-Davies puts in a scene-stealing performance as Ryan’s alarmingly obsessed #1 fan.

Sedgwick-Davies is also central to the play’s strongest segment, where a misjudged gambit sees the dark force of the Internet unleashed against someone who dares speak her mind.  It’s a briefly terrifying moment, but its emotional impact on a relatively vulnerable young woman is skipped too quickly over.  And in truth, we need to learn more about what all the characters are feeling: at the moment they’re a little one-dimensional, prone to fulfilling tropes and discouraging true empathy.

Set designer Emily Adamson makes a bold attempt at capturing the inescapable nature of social media: no fewer than three video screens dominate the stage, surrounded by a tangled skein of cables.  Unfortunately, Follow/Unfollow won’t be the last production to discover that technical complexity is prone to error, and on the day I attended there were problems both with freezing videos and with missed cues.  Straighten out those glitches, though, and they’ll be well on their way towards a striking visual style.

But in the end, I think Follow/Unfollow needs to listen to some of its own advice.  In a sense, it’s a script about style versus substance: about the importance of using whatever platform you have to say something which matters.  Yet its apparent moral – that everyone’s a sell-out – proves a disappointingly hackneyed one.  It’s a story of our age, but it needs a shift in focus to count as truly #relevant.