Data privacy gets the West End treatment

Ten years ago, if you’d said you were writing a play about privacy, people would probably have assumed you were looking at camera-wielding paparazzi or grubby red-top newspaper hacks.

But a new play at London’s Donmar Warehouse, titled simply Privacy, shows that the issue is now a widespread and pervasive concern.

The leaks by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the every-growing power of US technology companies, and the promiscuous behaviour of our always-on mobile phones all play a leading role.

At the risk of getting out of my depth in non-technology news territory, I’ll describe the play as “post-modern”: the playwright himself is depicted as the central character, urged by his director (also depicted) to write a play about privacy, and in the process to join the modern, share-all world of social media.

I should declare an interest: as part of our Data Baby project we were interviewed by the play’s production team and gave some guidance on the kind of tech stunts we’ve put on screen.

For example, the Snoopy technology which featured in our report on wifi hacking pops up in the second half.

But this is theatre, not news, and it takes an entertaining canter through the issues, combining cool graphics and nifty sequences to make hi-tech issues comprehensible (explaining meta-data using Romeo & Juliet’s demise is a masterstroke).

There are some terrifying audience participation moments which reveal that the wider public still remain worryingly unaware of how data is being gathered and used (I was stunned to hear gasps when the audience were shown how their iPhones track their movements – did people really not know that?)

At two and a half hours it’s a long play, but with so many opportunities for the audience to get involved, and a compelling narrative based around the playwright’s own journey through sharing and privacy, it flies by.

In fact, the play’s extensive reach is perhaps its only downfall: it tries to cram in so much that some threads get lost. The early discourse around the distinction between privacy and secrecy is never fully resolved (a shame, as it’s a key issue in the debate), and the attempt to cover a year’s worth of Snowden-based news in half an hour means skipping over some profound questions.

But hey, I do this for a living: perhaps a general audience needs a gentler introduction, and Privacy certainly ticks that box with style.

For those of us who see privacy and data protection as the key challenges of our age, it’s great to see other creative outlets tackling them head-on.

Follow @geoffwhite247 on Twitter.