24 March 2014
Director: Ellie Jones
Cast: Laura Howard, Darren Strange, Samantha Seager, Daniel Copeland
Playwright Torben Betts has the unusual ability to mix the
banal with the sharp, to mine the quotidian for those moments in which life is
lived fully, whether in pleasure but more often in despair. I forgot to take a
notebook last night, so I can’t give you specific examples – except that they
might not have worked out of context anyway, which is the beauty of the
writing. Betts is also a clever plotter; and he is funny.
Invincible is about the clash of civilizations: middle class
Guardianista south, full of liberal piety made easy by the probability of inherited wealth, comes up
against intellectually stifled working class Ukippish north. Needless to say nobody wins. It is a perfect sit com sit, and to begin
with one sits comfortably amused as the opening shots are fired. Darkness falls during the interval, and
although the com is not abandoned, the sit gets hairy.
That’s as much as I’ll say.
The performances are first class, utterly convincing. Laura Howard as an
obsessive Marxist twitches and writhes and hurls stares of incomprehension with
exhausting vigour, pulverising her ineffectual public school-educated husband
Oliver, played by Darren Strange as suffering with Hugh Grantish ummings and ahhings of social embarrassment. Daniel Copeland as the
football-loving postie with verbal diarrhoea, Alan, manages to extrude from us
both laughter and pity; his wife, Dawn, as played by Samantha Seager, is wound
up tight as her miniskirt and her anger and frustration at her life steams
throughout.
Betts plays with stereotypes here, which is a dangerous
business, but he pulls it off, just, because there are surprises and because he
writes so well, almost managing to disguise his own liberal sympathies.
Invincible is not a great play, but it is an engaging one, and especially so
in the degree of commitment by the company performing it. Recommended.
And look out for Downhill, Betts' first movie script and due out any time soon.
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