Shaftesbury Theatre, West End, London
All good things must come to an end, and with the average age of the original Ladyboys of Bangkok approaching 68, parent company “Dead Horse” are test-driving an intriguing new concept.
TRA Plating Machine 412D – 004 was built in early 2017. A manufacturing error left it with a 30mm BNC socket connector instead of a 4-core RJ45 jack in its rear access panel. Bound for the scrapheap, it was instead snapped up, along with several other defective robots by Dead Horse at a significant discount.
The flawed units were whisked to a secret workshop in Chiang Mai, where a team of expert roboticists used the FEP (fabulous/exploitative/populist) algorithm to refactor the robots into high-throughtput entertainment droids. Three years later, a show was born.
Conservative punters are advised to go elsewhere; it’s undeniably shocking to see a Hamamatsu 650m pulsed-dye cauterising drill with what are clearly 4k HDMI ports on its I/O bus, and a Riegi LMS-Z620 topography scanner with THREE Bluetooth transceivers just below the waveguide is not for the faint hearted either.
Conversely, those willing to keep their minds open will be greatly rewarded by this warm-hearted, family-friendly show. The aforementioned LMS-Z630 lip-syncs ‘Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto’ beautifully, and the JK500FL hybrid fiber welder 9Serial no. 3129-1921-0021)’s take on Daft Punk’s ‘Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger’ is as uplifting as it hilarious.
It might be a mere variation on a theme, but something tells me the Laserdroids are here to stay.
