Eve Miller
Prepare to spend the next hour confused, laughing, and probably getting up on stage yourself. Immerse yourself in the beautifully human chaos of 2050.
2050: A Manifesto opens on a bizarre assortment of props and costumes; blow-up furniture, tubes and wires, mop slippers, and a baby bottle. Alex Hetrick reclines, holding eye contact with each of us as we enter and take our seats. His unwavering bemused stare gives nothing away, but hints at a lot going on beneath the surface. He stands, chooses a participant to hold his makeshift slides, and takes us through a brief history of the world to get us up to speed. And so he begins, with help from an AI assistant (Wilson, in a nod to Castaway) and of course, every single audience member.
Honestly, this piece was very difficult to follow – abstract, ridiculous, and endlessly open to improvisation, Hetrick ducks and weaves around the point, if he ever has one at all. Each section seemingly comes out of nowhere: dress-up, more slideshows, rants to Wilson, stand-up, Q &A’s with the audience, and a genuinely unsettling (/hilarious) section where Hetrick is fed milk by an audience member.
Hetrick is a fearless performer – he marches towards audience interaction with a combination of firm intention and openness to play that facilitates incredibly curious theatre making. While I spent most of the hour completely lost, I spent all of it having fun, happy to let the chaos wash over me. While few of his points were clear, the overarching anti-AI message was, and was only bolstered by the undeniably humanity of the performance.
Genuinely weirder than anything I’ve ever seen at EdFringe, 2050: A Manifesto is a fascinating insight into Hetrick’s mind. Did I ask to look in there? No. Am I glad I did? Yes.
Drink recommendation: Anything but milk, please God.
Performances of 2050: A Manifesto have now concluded for EdFringe 2026.
Ellen Leslie
Finlay Clench
Oli Fuller
