Truthmachine ★★★★

Self-described “techno-troublemakers” Counterpilot, in association with fellow Australian company Cluster Arts, arrived in Scotland with the stylish, cerebral Truthmachine. In this 30-minute show, a selected audience member is hooked up to an actual polygraph machine and asked a battery of questions from an official questioner and from fellow audience members, who become a de facto jury and sit around a table in a darkened room with individual headsets, microphones, and triangular response panels.

Those personal panels light up green (for truths) or red (for falsehoods), and after a series of warm-up questions and a brief history of lie detector machines, the participants (up to twelve, six on each side of the daunting table) are asked if they are willing to sit in the ultimate seat of judgment.

At the reviewed performance, Francis, a young chap from Coventry, was selected for the hot seat. After he was hooked up to the lie detector, each member of the jury was given a choice between two questions to ask, and the topics ranged from benign (recycling) to moderate (thoughts on immigration). Then the moderator went to town with her interrogation, asking brave Francis if he thought she was attractive, and if he wanted to sleep with her. And that was just the warm-up.

Was it fun to watch Francis squiggle, squirm, and furrow his brow as questions were thrown his way?

Yes. Yes, it was.

What made the situation particularly exciting was its authenticity. We were watching someone make themselves vulnerable in front of strangers, and deciding whether or not that person was telling the truth in his responses. And so was a machine.

Truthmachine probably works best with a room full of complete strangers rather than groups of people who already know each other, and the show’s concept is stronger than the ultimate final message it conveys. Nonetheless, it’s a terrific way to spend half an hour, a technically impressive venture that provokes far more questions than answers.