LAST week I went to see a play that featured showroom dummies and this week I move to one that features robot actors - or "actoids", if you will. 

This is the Riverside Drama Company's production of Alan Aykbourn's Comic Potential. Can you spot a trend here? - 

Chandler Tate (Pat Tuffin) is a one-time top Hollywood film director, who in this story set in the not-too-distant future, has been reduced to helming a daytime television soap opera performed by the aforementioned robots.

When channel chief Lester Trainsmith's (Keith Coxen) nephew, Adam (John Lomas), gets to visit the set and meet his film-making idol, events take an unexpected course when one of the robots develops its own personality. 

Jacie Triplethree (Elizabeth O'Hara) is quite superb as the emerging robot and I'm sure Freud would definitely have something to say about the relationship between Adam and his new mechanical friend. 

The complicated settings of a television studio, two hotels, a restaurant and dress shop are competently handled by the group and there are some nice touches in characterisation.

My personal favourite was the assistant to the wheelchair-bound channel chief Marmion, played by Martin Holtom, who also directed the play. 

Once again though, as in quite a few amateur productions that I have witnessed this year, the prompt was heard far too much, and hindered the dramatic input, let alone the flow of comedy. 

The show definitely has Comic Potential, as long as the cast remember the words. 

Andy Potter