Theatre review: Around the World in 80 Days

Published on Tuesday 5 April 2011 19:56

AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS PLATFORM, EASTERHOUSE ***

THERE are moments in the life of Lung Ha's Theatre Company – dedicated to making theatre with adults with learning difficulties – when the work takes a great leap forward. Last year, the company helped create two remarkable shows, in Huxley's Lab – co-produced with Grid Iron – and a richly funny pair of Chekhov Shorts, smart, sexy and droll.

This year they seem to have reverted to something more like their previous form, with a good-looking version of Jules Verne's 19th-century comic classic, in which the quality of the production almost seems to swamp the actors. Based on Bengt Ahlfors's short one-hour stage adaptation, the show is beautifully designed by Becky Minto to reflect the mood of technological excitement and progress that swept the western world in the late Victorian age; the backdrop is a giant cream-coloured clock mechanism, which perfectly matches the story of Verne's eccentric adventurer-hero Phileas Fogg.

There's fine choreography and movement by Christine Devaney, as she conjures up the bustle of a great London railway station or the docks in Calcutta at the high noon of Empire, with Pete Vilk offering eloquently percussive live music. And Stephen Tait makes a debonair Phileas Fogg, with Mark Howie strking just the right comic note as his long-suffering manservant, Passepartout. Elsewhere in the cast, though, the performances seem less confident. And although Maria Oller's production will offer plenty of fun and spectacle to audiences at the Traverse in Edinburgh this week, it makes a slightly disappointing follow-up to a year when Lung Ha's really seemed to be unleashing a new kind of performing power.