Whether it’s miming along to the notoriously tricky drum solo in Diana Ross’ ‘I’m Coming Out’ or doing a cartwheel in the highest heeled boots imaginable, you best believe Courtney Pauroso (or rather her sex robot alter ego Vanessa 5000) will deliver. In this unhinged product demonstration, presented in partnership with Better Help therapy, Taco Bell and Pornhub (not really), Pauroso shows off the varying ways in which Vanessa 5000 can satisfy her target straight-male audience. Complete with three dishwasher-safe holes, an undying ability to laugh at all their jokes and listen to ramblings about cryptocurrency, this piece of AI ass is built to please. 

As she reads from Theodore John Kaczynski’s technology-critical Unabomber Manifesto and slides a software disc between her buttocks, Pauroso’s jokes oscillate between high intellectualism and childish stupidity. Her command over audience members when pulling them on stage for large set-pieces is masterful as well as hilarious, often shocking us into disbelief as normal physical boundaries are crossed again and again.

More emotionally human moments arise too. As Vanessa 5000 acquires more data about what it’s like to be a real woman in the world she begins to malfunction, breaking down into a cover of Radiohead’s ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. In these parts we see Pauroso’s real personality shining through the cracks of her robotic façade, moments that, thanks to the strength of Vanessa 5000 as a character and concept, manage to make us fall even more deeply under her spell. 

Courtney Pauroso: Vanessa 5000, Pleasance Courtyard, until 27 August, 9pm.