Review of Another Paradise

Set against the backdrop of the controversial UK Identity Card scheme, Sayan Kent’s recent play Another Paradise (2009) conjures up a future dystopian image ofa biometrically-controlled Britain in which every citizen is reliant on biometrictechnology, ID cards and national databases not only as a means for functioning ineveryday life, but more so as a prerequisite for being able to “count” as a person atall. Kent’s message is trenchant and clear: with this extremely technocratic trend, toward which the world is apparently heading, comes a loss of agency, individuality, liberty and human touch. The play, as such, acts as a mouthpiece for conveyingsome of the major debates surrounding the adoption of biometric ID cards andhighlighting the potentially dangerous ramifications of over-relying on technologyfor governing society. Much of these alarming concerns and potential implicationsare explored, somewhat satirically but nonetheless seriously, through the characters’manipulated, re-appropriated, mistaken, lost or stolen identities as well as throughthe concrete situations in the midst of which they find themselves as a result