There is a kind of company of the breathless, ‘Lets put on a show’, type, who seem to say, ‘To hell with make-believe, we’re just going to pretend’. Let me explain: serious folk, so the theory goes, wish to get the audience to believe, for a fleeting two hours, that Sir Woodby Hardon and Lady Insatiable really are a couple of mismatched lovers and that by decoupling our emotions from our day to day concerns and transferring them to the events on stage they can be played on by the actors, director and writer as the audience is drawn into the story. Against this process is one where the actors, simple story tellers all, just pretend and (as in Brecht) are happy to be seen to be pretending. However, such is our propensity to become imaginatively engaged that the result may often be the same with the result that, even against the intention of the writer, a character such as Mother Courage is pitied rather than being seen as a cautionary example of profiteering and war mongering.

I have to confess that when a group of actors comes on stage with ne’re a care for the fourth wall, are happy to pick up an instrument and bang out a song and are clearly intent on entertaining me with a story – however fanciful – a kind of ease takes hold as my critical faculties are gently massaged and told to stand down. Such was my feeling of relief when the cast of the Jules Verne classic tale of English sangfroid, emerged from various parts of the stage with an infectious bonhomie to give their first song about ‘Clockwork’, a reference to the fastidious and punctilious nature of Mr Phileas Fogg, who rises to the challenge of some of his Reform Club chums by proposing a bet that he can circumnavigate the globe (rarely leaving British jurisdiction) in the small matter (in 1872) of eighty days.

The cast of the New International Encounter company are clearly out to have some fun with characters and plot and go to it with relish and invention. The on-stage piano, for example, doubles as train and elephant and the various stages in the race, from Suez to New York, are drawn with elegant economy. The balloon stage of the race is a little gem. The international cast (they tell us) are an ensemble and not credited with particular roles (fair enough), take a fairly broad brush approach to the characters. The emotional stone that is Fogg is hirsute and suitably stiff-lipped whilst his resourceful and ebullient manservant, Passepartout, (puckishly cross-cast) is shrugingly Gallic with an unspoken twinkle of ‘mad Englishman’ never far from his lips. Fogg’s Scotland Yard shadow, Fix, played as a wide boy with a warrant card, adds a further dimension of suspense to the journey. Travelling companion, Cromarty, is played panto’ style and develops a nice relationship with the audience with lots of off-script foolery, ideal for a family audience. The whole thing brims over with good ideas and fun which the energetic cast cheerfully transmit to the audience.   ★★★★☆   Graham Wyles   3/07/15

Photo by Farrows Creative