In a world dictated by technology, in a society where efficiency and not personality is key, Steve, an easy-going IT expert, and Hayley, a fiercely ambitious management consultant, struggle to co-exist in Laura Wade's new drama Other Hands. They are drawn to each other through a shared inability to grasp their own feelings.
Yet, Other Hands isn’t so much a story about the entanglement of love and the complications arising within the secret politics of relationships that mount with every passing year, but a commentary on how we attempt to relate with one another in a world surrounded by machines. From Steve’s focus on virtual role-play games to Lydia’s forays into internet dating, the neurotic victim of society’s efficiency drive Wade suggests we have and are, is growing apart from humanity in an attempt to find a role or acceptance in society.
As the main characters continually fail to relate with one another, they find this inability manifests itself in the form of RSI, a debilitating injury of, in this instance, the hands, which ultimately render both characters disabled as they struggle to grasp their feelings for one another. This plot is played out cleverly and is a truly original thread in this otherwise clichéd mix of attempted affairs and friendships-that-threaten-to-go-further.
However, the best scenes belong to the portrayals of said affairs and friendships. The "sex" scene between Greg (Michael Gould) and Hayley (Anna Maxwell Martin) is extremely clever and, despite each character's overall lack of depth, genuinely comes to life. It develops the characters with it as we begin to wonder upon Hayley’s declared intention to "sleep with another man."
Another great moment comes from Steve’s dalliance with Lydia. She asks, as he’s so good with computers, if he can fix her kettle. It is a moment that makes me reassess our dependence on technology when we can’t, as a species or as a man, perform the tasks our ancestors’ ancestors were doing with just some sticks and a couple of pieces of flint.
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