Review – Eastbourne’s Invisible Man: dazzling illusions, richly entertaining

Have you seen The Invisible Man? Groan briefly at the feeble joke – and then get along to the Devonshire Park Theatre and feast your eyes on Eastbourne Theatres’ superb summer season offering! Theatres director Chris Jordan has long since established a tradition of excellent summer productions at the Devonshire Park – and once at the Winter Garden with that very engaging Kiss Me Quickstep. One Man Two Guvnors, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Most recently, we have been treated to some absolutely dazzling shows, which combine a good story, accomplished acting and technical perfection.

The stories of authors such as HG Wells and Jules Verne simply invite adaptation: inventive plots, improbable but full of imagination and a dash of late Victorian adventure. Around the World in 80 Days delighted us last summer, and Chris would probably have directed a version of The Time Machine, if Original Theatre hadn’t already toured it in the Spring this year. This time, The Invisible Man is less invisible than simply incredible. No device is overlooked or untried, and every single device comes off. Again and again, we as audience have to blink and question what we just saw – or did not see! This, remember, is live theatre: no second or third take, and no CGI cheating. The Invisible Man takes technical theatre to new levels.

The illusions come courtesy of Scott Penrose, a past President of The Magic Circle whose credits range from Turn of the Screw to Spamalot! And here, the illusions are not optional party tricks, but central to the drama. Repeated to perfection, no doubt, in the rehearsal room, and worth the ticket price alone. A highly experienced nine-strong company relishes the character parts – all of them engaging and often amusing, albeit written without very great depth. Suzie Chard is a crackingly brassy landlady Mrs Hall, while James Peake and Steven Pinder are knowingly cliched as the Rev Bunting and Squire Burdock respectively. Brendan Hooper, the Colonel, is as preposterous as his walrus moustache, and Devon-Elise Johnson turns in a lovely maid Millie-nice-but-dim. Several parts are doubled by the versatile cast, including David Partridge as plodding PC Jaffers and all too clever Dr Kemp.

Gillian Ford stands out in one of the saner roles, a schoolmistress with a brain and a hint of Miss Jean Brodie. And Ben Roddy, for whom the Devonshire Park is a second home, is a marvellous Marvel with fabulous audience rapport.

In some ways, the show works better on the surface, and as a spectacle, than as a statement of some higher truth. The plot – and this is no particular spoiler – pivots on an experiment gone disastrously wrong, a human life turned from ambition to despair. The Invisible Man is yet another of those cautionary fables about humans over-reaching themselves.

Indeed, there is an all too final despair in the final scenes of the play. Philip Stewart’s achingly pathetic title-role portrayal is impressive – deprived of the actor’s stock in trade of facial expression, and limited even in movement and gesture. And still, in his downfall, we weep with him.

But ultimately, The Invisible Man is not a piece of philosophy but a piece of strikingly imaginative fiction. Here, on the Devonshire Park stage, it is fiction ripped from the page and brought stunningly alive – by a company who must have worked long hours to perfect the effects and weld them into a seamless piece of drama.

Why do we go to the theatre? To be amused, entertained, dazzled. To be challenged, provoked, puzzled. To be surprised, astonished, exhilarated. Well, The Invisible Man ticks virtually all of those boxes. Most HG Wells stories stretch credibility: his place in literary history is secured by quite prophetic writings like The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds - a sort of science fiction genre ahead of its time. Quite serious stuff; and from a man who started out as an apprentice draper! Perhaps we all have great creative work hidden within us, when we get around to it…. Better, we allow Eastbourne Theatres to create it for us: and this production is a cracking evening of pure theatrical invention and imagination. Sit back and let the illusions dazzle you, baffle you and richly entertain you.

Kevin Anderson