Will Adamsdale seems an unlikely champion of AI. He's an easily distracted technophobe who embraces simplicity, who moved to Devon to be closer to rural life, and who likes nothing more than gently strumming an acoustic guitar on stage. He must be the only person ever to have recorded his conversations with ChatGPT onto analogue cassette tapes. Even ‘Luddite’ would be too strong a word to describe him, suggesting angry protest, where Adamsdale simply has too little interest in tech to engage – though he is campaigning for a smartphone ban for under-16s at his kids’ school.

But then, the bot dug him out of a creative hole.

Twenty-two years ago, Adamsdale became the truly unexpected winner of what was then called the Perrier Award. He never tires of mentioning it, but only ever in a self-deprecatory way. Because rather than parlaying that sudden success into a stellar comedy career, the restless jack of all artsy trades squirrelled himself away to work on a novel about chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov’s battles with IBM’s Deep Blue computer, despite his agent’s pleas to do something more commercially viable.

But then a lockdown miracle, and a sitcom loosely based on the same idea, now about a human and his AI pal, is pitched to Hollywood, and gains traction. How could busy-minded procrastinator Adamsdale possibly crank out the scripts in time? Step forward ChatGPT, initially to help get over writer’s block. But it soon becomes apparent Adamsdale has done a deal with Silicon Valley’s devil – selling the soul of his work for the ease of getting things done. 

The cost is apparent as he becomes increasingly infuriated by the bot as a deadline looms – his frustration tipping increasingly into psychotic madness like Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, an analogy the usually affable Adamsdale allows to take hold as he talks about Italian-style pasta sauce.

As well as circling themes of connection and the parasocial relationship Adamsdale has with the software, AI, AI, Oh… also takes in the performer’s relationship with his wife – a key worker, in contrast to his feckless existence – and more crucially his tech-savvy children, especially his son, always ready with a quip to take him down a peg or two.

It’s a relatively modest story, but an engaging one in the hands of a relaxed, unpolished storyteller like Adamsdale… although a rather too theatrical cadence in the early parts erodes the illusion of casual conversation he achieves elsewhere.

And some questions remain. Were Hollywood studios really ready to greenlight a series so extensively written by AI, even if they didn’t know it? That raises huge fears about the future quality of TV and film-making. The ethics of it all are rather skimmed over in favour of the focus on a man’s conflicted relationship with a technology he finds useful.

It’s worth seeing, particularly if you like slightly offbeat, intelligent British comedy rather than conventional stand-up. Not my words, but those of ChatGPT when I asked if this show was any good… But then, she is his mate.