20:00, Thu 31st January – Sat 2nd February 2019 at ADC Theatre (Larkum Studio)
Lent Week 2

London, 1969. A conscientious but mischievous phone-operator uses her specialist skills to avert the end of the network.

The last days of the manual telephone exchange. While the new automated switchboards are being installed across the nation, an operator resents connecting phone calls that are ending the careers of her colleagues. Never shy to a prank, Susan commits herself to take it further, using her skills of eavesdropping, rumour-spreading, and call-misdirection to save the present from the future. When the upgrades were only scheduled in Birmingham alone she was able divert and disrupt them; yet within days the threat starts to close in on London itself.

Unable to match the efficiency of the system, Susan must contend for the human side of the technological sector. Though she is up against an industry that prefers the superfast dreams of the visionaries, who promise instant connectivity and the removal of human error. Susan refuses to leave, in part to complete her employment, and in part to wait for the impossible return of a precious fellow operator.