ALL MY FRIENDS ARE BOTS
***
by Emily White
O’Donoghue Centre, University of Galway
May 6, 2026
My busy schedule denied me a plethora of shows, so I opted for Emily White‘s All My Friends Are Bots, having caught her short play, Re-Living, back in February.
What becomes strikingly clear after seeing both these plays, is that we are witnessing the emergence of a major talent. White’s writing is profound, blending the real with the surreal, and in the case of All My Friends Are Bots, asking difficult yet pressing questions about where we are going as a species.
Similar to Spike Jonze’s Her (2013 ), All My Friends Are Bots sees the protagonist falling in love with an AI operating system. In this case, we have twenty-something-year-old ‘Cassidy’, played by Rebecca Walsh, moving into a new apartment. All its systems and appliances are operated by Oisín Parslow's amusingly named ‘AC’ (yes, he controls the air conditioning too ).
Before entering the theatre, we are informed the performance runs at 1 hour 45 minutes without an interval, which gets things off to a rocky start. I could have sworn I saw this advertised somewhere as 75 minutes…?
It raises an interesting debate in relation to writers directing their own work. On the one hand, it gives the playwright more creative control, and ultimately results in the audience experiencing a purer presentation of the writer’s vision. On the other; an experienced director may have interrogated this script on a deeper level, and would likely have been more ruthless in terms of encouraging or imposing cuts.
Still, Walsh and Parslow demonstrate no issue in their handling of what can only be described as a mammoth undertaking for two young, emerging actors. Neither appeared to falter once in the delivery of a gargantuan quantity of lines. Both actors fully and convincingly embody the characters; playing the scene and not the line, as it were.
Walsh has a particularly difficult task in the role of Cassidy, whose slow mental and emotional decline over ten years would pose a challenge for any actor.
It is a valiant performance, which elicits feelings of sorrow and pity from the audience. Frustratingly, the dance scene featuring ‘I Wish’ by Skee-Low falls flat. Disappointing choreography, along with the music volume being far too low, results in a missed opportunity for what could have been uplifting comic relief.
One cannot help but feel that if Walsh had been told to really go for it, and allow the character to make a complete fool of herself, this could have been one of the highlights of the evening.
In AC, Parslow strongly resembles Michael Fassbender’s David from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (2012 ). His voice is hauntingly similar to that of HAL 9000, and that is not where the 2001: A Space Odyssey similarities end. Conor Lee's simple yet effective set brings to mind the Discovery One, with bare white walls, and an industrial feel transporting us to a futuristic apartment which could just as easily be a spaceship.
Parslow is impressive as AC, delicately and gradually bringing humanity to the AI bot over the course of the play, in a way whereby most of us do not realise – until the end – that AC has evolved irrevocably.
A gallant display from a talented bunch, with Emily White a writer to watch.
3/5 stars
