All in the mind | 17 December 2005

On Ego is a lecture that turns into a nightmare. An amiable young neurologist, Alex, strolls on stage and addresses us on the subject of mind. He has a lab technician Derek (Robin Soans wearing a white coat and a lost gaze), who presents him with a bucket containing a brain. Alex picks up the dripping ‘lump of meat’ and uses it to illustrate Francis Crick’s observation that ‘Conscious experience is not caused by the behaviour of neurons. It is the behaviour of neurons.’ The show then evolves, by a series of sudden shifts and jerks, from a monologue into a drama. Derek the lab assistant turns out to be more talented than he first appeared. He’s invented a ‘teleporter’, which vaporises the body and reconstitutes it somewhere else, just like the device operated by Scottie on Star Trek. He persuades Alex to travel by ‘teleporter’ to meet his wife for dinner at a London restaurant.