Unlike previous Menier productions, I’d be surprised to see ‘The Invisible Man’ transferring to the West End. Ken Hill’s adaptation of HG Wells’s story of the scientist who turns himself transparent gets framed by a blowsy bit of bloomer-slapping music hall business circa 1903: the troupe of deliciously dimwitted dancers are to unfold a tale that will strike ‘’orror’ (cue spooky sound-effect) into the breast of broad comedy.
Puffed-out old jokes and horrific chills continue to collide in a story which is a bit like Agatha Christie without the mystery: our setting, the lovingly conjured-up village of Iping, contains every little English stereotype, from clever suffragette spinster to dim squire to gay vicar, but the criminal’s identity is obvious from the start.
Knowingly crap jokes and creepy effects are not enough to sustain two and a half hours, despite the exceptional efforts of a cast which includes Maria Friedman as a foghorn landlady and Jo-Stone Fewings as the squire with a secret penchant for polynomials. Another highlight is Paul Kieve’s wizard stage tricks, which make it look like the invisible man is rummaging through drawers, puffing on a cig in his invisible gob, coshing people on the head and even shaking Friedman’s breasts like a pair of maracas. With sexual harassment as well as mass-murder, theft, bullying and a spookily amplified voice to his name, the invisible chap (John Gordon Sinclair) is clearly a nasty piece of work. That nastiness makes you notice the crude side of the end-of-the-pier humour which is traditionally resurrected at this time of year.
This is a self-consciously crackers Christmas show, replete with nifty illusions, a mugging marvellous cast and jokes which are so corny it’s a miracle they can run at all. It’s strenuous good fun – but while you remain baffled to the end by the madcap stage antics of the unseen scientist, it’s perhaps easier to understand why music hall has largely disappeared from our stages.