A mash-up between HG Wells and Isambard Kingdom Brunel is further mirrored by the fusion of two Bristol based theatre companies – Show of Strength and Closer Each Day.  Together all four combine to produce an ambulatory performance on board The SS Great Britain. 

Wells is played with a boyish enthusiasm throughout by Andrew Kelly and, amid artefacts of the original SS Great Britain, we are informed that we are attending one of his lectures on biology.  However, what we are really here to learn about is the complicated love life of one of Science Fiction’s first masters.

Rachael Procter-Lane as the abandoned wife Isabel is clearly not on the same intellectual path as her husband and her melancholic anger is well captured, especially when confronted with the imminent reality of being replaced by his young student Amy Robbins, later known as Jane Wells. 

The redoubtable Lynda Rooke captures most of the attention earlier on as the censorious busy body boarding house landlady; keen to find out more about the couple who have secreted themselves away in their Sevenoaks rented rooms, as well as why the mother in law keeps to her rooms. 

The audience are split up several times and moved to various areas of the ship to hear contrasting stories from Wells, his wives and of course of the Time Traveller himself.  These perambulations do help us marvel at the glory of the ocean going liner and the power it conveyed and at times the setting does much to help the narrative along, but it only does this occasionally.  The backdrop is at its best when the Time Traveller (John Lomas) marvels at the technological wonders that the Victorian Age produced and introduces the concept of Time as a movable and tangible force amid the scraping and turning of the enormous ships engine works. 

Some of the script is a little clunky at times and this may have been the result of a first night with an element of improvisation which is the speciality of Closer Each Day.  However, a scene between the new Jane Wells and her mother crackles with energy amid the splendour of the formal dining rooms.  Mother and daughter duck and weave between the marbled pillars as they argue over HG’s loyalty to the marriage while conducting further amorous adventures.  Alice Lamb and Lynda Rooke, the latter this time as mother, convey real energy and force the narrative to consider whether the Time in which they lived forced them to be subservient to the male writer. A final scene with the whole audience reinforces the concept that these forceful women would only end up as footnotes in history. 

An interesting evening that said something about the undoubted genius Wells and something about the women in his life but didn’t quite go far enough in either direction to tell us enough.  A show about Wells or focussing on Wells’ women might have more dramatic potential.  Another Time perhaps?    ★★★☆☆    Bryan Mason    30^th June 2019