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edinburghguide.com Review

***** (5 stars)

The Principle of Motion is the latest offering from the previously Fringe First-nominated Activated Image theatre company. Their artistic vision is to take theatre back to its roots as a forum for public storytelling, and they achieve it admirably. The play opens in 18th century Austria, where the Empress commissions a nobleman, Wolfgang von Kempelen, to create a spectacle for her amusement, one that will outshine the recent visit of a Frenchman and his gallery of automata. Accordingly, Von Kempelen sets about inventing the Turk, a machine that will play chess better than a human.

In parallel to this, in the Bletchley Park of the 1940s, Alan Turing is turning his brilliance to the same challenge. Hundreds of years apart, two men, one idea - can a machine ever truly think? This is a performance delivered with polish and verve. There is literally not a second wasted. Driven by a playful and vivid curiosity, Activated Image have worked hard to devise a play fizzing with originality. Reminds you what the Fringe is really for."