From London’s Royal Court Theatre to Flight Path Theatre, Clock & Spiel Productions presents, this June, the Australian premiere of Thomas Eccleshare’s darkly funny and disturbingly prescient play, Instructions for Correct Assembly.
In a time when artificial intelligence is rewriting how we work, communicate, and even love, Instructions for Correct Assembly arrives on the Sydney stage with uncanny relevance.
When Sydney couple, Hari and Max, purchase a build-at home, artificially intelligent son, they are thrust into a journey of programming, socialising, and reassembling the future they lost.
As they introduce their AI “child” to friends and move him into their late son’s bedroom, the complexities of grief, pressure, and unmet expectations rise to the surface. The more they try to erase pain, the less human their lives become.
Directed by Hailey McQueen (The Screwtape Letters, Freud’s Last Session, Things I Know to be True), Instructions for Correct Assembly, features a cast of six including Ben Chapple (Good Cop, Bad Cop, Stan/CW & Playing for Keeps, Network 10), Jacki Mison (Strangers in a Carpark), Jane Wallace, Nick Curnow, David Allsopp and Kyra Belford-Thomas.
“This play is razor sharp, heartbreaking and utterly of the moment,” says Director Hailey McQueen. “It captures the deep ache of parental love, the pressures of perfectionism, and our growing obsession with seeking technological solutions to emotional problems.”
With echoes of Black Mirror and the emotional rawness of After Life, Instructions for Correct Assembly is a theatrically inventive, morally tangled work that hacks the heart of the family unit and slices into the anxieties of modern life.
Thomas Eccleshare is a British playwright, theatre-maker, and screenwriter known for his inventive storytelling and distinctive blend of dark humor, physical theatre, and surrealism.
Eccleshare’s debut play, Pastoral, won the Verity Bargate Award in 2011, launching a stage career marked by critically praised works such as Heather and Instructions for Correct Assembly, the latter premiering at the Royal Court Theatre.
Beyond theatre, Eccleshare has ventured into television, most notably with his original drama series Witness Number Three, which aired on Channel 5. He was also the recipient of the inaugural JJ BAFTA Screenwriting Bursary.
Director: Hailey McQueen | Featuring: David Allsopp, Kyra Belford-Thomas, Ben Chapple, Nick Curnow, Jacki Mison, Jane Wallace | Set Designer: Jacob Parr | Lighting Designer: Victor Kalka | Costume/Props Designer: Lulu Ross | Sound Designer: Charlotte Leamon | Stage Manager: Colleen Willis | Producer: Kyra Belford-Thomas
Instructions for Correct Assembly
Flight Path Theatre – Addison Road Community Centre, 142 Addison Road, Marrickville
Season: 26 June – 5 July 2025 (preview: 25 June)
Bookings: www.flightpaththeatre.org
For more information, visit: www.clockandspielproductions.com for details.
Image: Jacob Parr