REVIEW: Time Machine by The Original Theatre Company at Cambridge Arts Theatre

This play is bonkers. At times it is downright silly. It has elements of pantomime and aspects of The Play that Goes Wrong. It’s a mish mash. Yet on the first night at Cambridge Arts Theatre, the audience loved it, joined in with the audience participation and yelled with delight at the end.

Time Machine, written by Steven Canny and John Nicholson, directed by Orla O’Loughlin, and performed by three energetic and engaging actors, each playing several parts, is an homage to H G Wells’s book.

The Time Machine by the Original Theatre Company. Photo by Mark Doue

Published in 1895, Wells predicts a future where there are two separate human species, the innocent Eloi, who live in beautiful surroundings above ground and the cannibalistic Morlocks, who live underground. The Morlocks farm the Eloi like cattle and emerge at night to eat them.

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The Time Machine by the Original Theatre Company Photo by Mark Doue

The play, though circling round Wells’ original story, (in pretty wide circles) concentrates mostly on the difficulties of staging a play about his themes – and it questions, over and over again, the concept of time travel and a machine which might facilitate it.

Meanwhile, the three performers playing themselves (as actors) George Kemp, Amy Revelle and Michael Dylan give us fine performances as a variety of characters.

Not every moment is exciting. Much of the comedy in the first half is predictable and hackneyed. Sophisticated theatregoers may be underwhelmed.

The Time Machine by the Original Theatre Company. Photo by Mark Doue

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Kemp tells the audience at the start of the show: “You came here expecting to be entertained. You need to let go of that thought.” I saw what he meant.

But in the second half, once we have got past the predictable repetition of the opening of the first half, there is an energy to the performance which is undeniable and some unexpected audience participation which lifts the action to another level.

The audience left with smiles on their faces.

The Time Machine by the Original Theatre Company. Photo by Mark Doue

Sometimes simple nonsense can lift the spirits.

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Time Machine is at Cambridge Arts Theatre until Saturday, February 17.