The premise of KSOSES, the latest play by writer and director Bill Dallas-Lea is fairly straightforward: an uptight overachiever, a non-confrontational people-pleaser, a cocksure fool and a stubborn underdog walk into a space simulation. What could possibly go wrong? Over the course of two hours, this sci-fi drama comedy takes the audience through the ups and downs of this intergalactic group project from hell in a production that is technically slick and stylish, though potentially lacking in emotional intensity.

The plot of the first act starts out fairly simple; four trainee cosmonauts (played by Adriana De Persia Colon, Erin Hateley, Rachel Guo, and Freddy Shaw) are placed in a simulation with the aim of staying alive for six months. Every time they fail, the simulation resets, and they are left back at square one. Hijinks, bickering, and backstabbing abound as the crew struggle to find any common ground.

Shaw’s turn as the overconfident yet insecure Myraden was particularly strong; embodying that sort of cockiness that is all-too-familiar to any of us that have had the misfortune of having a particularly mansplainer-y supervision partner. In both his delivery of the lines and his impressive command of physical comedy, his raw energy really helped to buoy moments in the first act. Though he may have been on a spaceship light years away, Shaw’s character felt all-too-real and all-too-relatable to everyday life in Cambridge.

“A bunch of overachievers, all suddenly thrust together into a strange situation and forced to grapple with their own egos sounds pretty familiar to the average Cambridge experience.”

This sort of relatability is what really runs throughout the play. Though it’s set in space a thousand years into the future, many of the emotional beats of KSOSES will resonate with its student audience. A bunch of overachievers, all suddenly thrust together into a strange situation and forced to grapple with their own egos sounds pretty familiar to the average Cambridge experience. Take away all of the space set design, and you’re left with a show about ambition, friendship, and learning that chasing your dreams isn’t quite as clean-cut as it seemed when you were younger.

In fact, it was in these little personal moments that the performers really got to shine, and I only wish that we’d got more of these. The four main actors were all consistently very strong, and were able to balance bombastic comic moments alongside quieter, more introspective scenes. The play was at its strongest when exploring the psyches of its characters; their lives, their likes and dislikes, their quirky little idiosyncrasies, from Myraden’s habit of playing chess against himself, to Vos’ tragic relationship with their sibling - a casualty of a previous intergalactic experiment.

Indeed, Adriana De Persia Colon gives a truly standout performance as Vos, the taciturn underdog of the group, whose scenes were delivered with naturalistic subtlety and a real sense of stage presence. In a way, I was itching for more of this subtlety to be extended throughout the play; certain lines that were obviously meant to be big emotional punches lacked the gravity to really be sold as devastating, though in the case of one large twist toward the end of the second act, this anticlimactic revelation was redeemed by the fantastic physical acting of both De Persia Colon’s Vos and Erin Hately’s Isala.

“At the end of the day, this is what student theatre should be; bold, fun, and not afraid to try out new things and ideas regardless of whether they fully pay off or not.”

In these moments of physical acting, the show really demonstrated the importance of ‘show, not tell’ that I wish had been applied a little more throughout the rest of the production. I found myself wondering whether certain moments, such as the solioquies that are used throughout the first act, could’ve been swapped out with something more subtle. Rather than hear about how one character hated another, I wanted to see it in their body language. This tendency towards over-exposition made the first act feel a little sluggish; time-loop aside, it began to feel a little repetitive and there were only so many times I could watch people bicker. The second act had stronger pacing, though certain emotional moments felt rushed and didn’t quite deliver the emotional gut-punch that was desired.

That being said, staging a show in the Corpus Playroom is no mean feat at the best of times - and that goes double for trying to stage something as ambitious as a sci-fi drama-comedy. However, lighting designers Emily Betts and Sky Wilshaw deserve a huge shoutout for their inventive and meticulous sound design; from the use of character interviews before the show, to smartly placed classical music needle-drops, the production was sonically a masterpiece. The same goes for the lighting and the visuals, with custom-made graphics really helping to immerse the audience in a futuristic sci-fi universe. It is then such a shame that this immersion was almost shattered every single time there was a scene change in the first half of the show, where the sounds of tables and chairs scraping across the floor really would have benefitted from being disguised more effectively.

At the end of the day, this is what student theatre should be; bold, fun, and not afraid to try out new things and ideas regardless of whether they fully pay off or not. With its slick design and intriguing premise, alongside some real standout moments and performances, KSOSES already offers a look into how great it could truly be with a little more workshopping. And I for one can’t wait to see what the future holds for this production.

KSOSES is showing at the Corpus Playroom until Saturday 9th March 2024.