Alone in a cube that’s glowing in the darkness, X is content within its littleuniverse of infinite thought. This solitude is disturbed by the appearance of Y,who insists on exposing X to the richness of the physical world. Each beginsto long for what the other has, luring them into a strange loop.

In this play for two variables, Marcus du Sautoy and Victoria Gould use mathematicsand theatre to navigate the furthest reaches of our world. Through aseries of surreal episodes, X and Y tackle some of life’s greatest questions:where did the universe come from, does time have an end, do we have freewill?

I is a Strange Loop was first performed by the authors at the Barbican Pit,London, in March 2019.