There is a cinematic quality to the fast-paced stage version of Minority Report directed by Max Webster. That's not just because it is visually rather than dialogue driven by the stunningly impressive futuristic set, video and lighting.
It’s also the continuous movement of the leading character, Dame Julia Anderton (Jodie McNee), the CEO of the British Pre-Crime (BPC) organisation, who goes on the run after she discovers at a conference at which she’s speaking in 2050 that the technology has identified her as a pre-murderer.
Britain was at that time supposedly free of crime following a 2038 referendum agreeing that everybody should be fitted with brain chips that enable BPC to identify who had murderous thoughts. But not everyone is happy about the system. The protester Fleming (Danny Collins), who interrupts the conference, insists it has sent innocent people to prison.
As Julia breaks out of a self-driving car transporting her as a prisoner and clambers along rooftop ledges helped by protesters and an AI companion called David in her search for what she feels must be a stitch-up, she is conscious that what is happening to her may discredit the system she has fought long and hard to develop following the murder of her sister.
Although we never really get to know any of the lightly drawn characters, from the politician friend Ralph (Nicholas Rowe) to her nerdish husband George (Nick Fletcher), there are occasional moments of humour, such as her threat to reverse David’s (Tanvi Virmani) operating mode to the level of Alexa.
The use of technology in the process of identifying and dealing with people in the criminal justice system is highly topical, from the recent Israeli revelations about using AI to target those they kill to the controversial police use of facial identification equipment in the UK.
Unfortunately, there is no dramatic tension to the moral issues of the technology, despite them being illustrated by Julia’s plight. Instead, what lightly holds the audience's attention in this ninety-minute traditional thriller is Julia’s race to escape the clutches of the authorities.