Golem review – visual bravura marred by scattergun satire

I was bowled over by The Animals and Children Took to the Streets, in which the group called 1927 memorably combined technical skill with social subversiveness. Now they apply their trademark mix of animation and live action to a story about our enslavement to technology. For all the show’s visual bravura, I felt the law of diminishing returns begin to set in.

Directed and written by Suzanne Andrade, the show harks back to a 1913 novel by Gustav Meyrink in which the golem becomes the embodiment of the Prague ghetto’s collective psyche. In this version it is a clay automaton whose prime function is to serve the needs of the nerdy Bob, who spends his days in a Kafkaesque office where he is part of “the back-up to the back-up”. Gradually the labour-saving golem takes over both Bob’s domestic and office life and, on expiration, is replaced by an even more domineering example who is one of a series of mass-produced monsters.

As in the previous show, Paul Barritt’s animation is a source of constant delight. The original golem, a squat figure with a pendulous penis, is wittily drawn. Barritt also captures, with a nod to Terry Gilliam, the raffish squalor of an urban landscape in which bog-standard restaurants coexist with clip joints and sex parlours. The five actors effortlessly merge with the animation and acquire their own distinct personalities, especially in a would-be revolutionary punk band, Annie and the Underdogs, prevented from performing only by crippling stage fright.

The show is undeniably clever. It just never seems sure what precisely it is satirising. In part, it is an attack on our increasing reliance on robotic machines, which is an idea as old as Karel Čapek’s 1920 play, RUR. But the show also spreads into an assault on the despoliation of city life, the vandalising impact of corporate culture, false images of personal success and the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the popular press. All these are valid targets: there are simply too many of them for a 90-minute story. But even if the show lacks focus, it is full of treasurable individual moments. I especially enjoyed the way Bob’s girlfriend, an office wage-slave, dreams of a visit to the Keswick pencil museum, and the TV-fixated golem’s announcement: “I adore Benedict Cumberbatch”. Since a recent episode of Sherlock contained a golem, that turns out to be a typically sophisticated in-joke within the scattergun satire.

• Until 31 January. Box office: 020-7922 2922. Venue: Young Vic, London.