Anyone can now circumnavigate the globe in well under 80 hours without breaking sweat, but when Jules Verne wrote his novel about the trials and adventures of Phileas Fogg, who accepts a wager to travel around the world in just 80 days, the aeroplane was still a dream for the early flight pioneers. In what can only be described as a summer pantomime – but an exceptionally witty one – New International Encounter play neatly on the differences between Fogg’s conception of the world and our own.
It’s just as well. Verne may have been a sci-fi visionary, but his hero belongs to a world of Victorian colonialism where to be born an Englishman is like winning “first prize in the lottery of life”, women are damsels who need saving, and foreigners are either funny or damned suspicious.
This is all neatly sent up by NIE, with a little nod to Nigel Farage. Later, there’s a sequence where the Victorian travellers get an attack of linguistic political correctness as they face the arrows of “Native Americans”. In fact, language and the way we use and misuse it is constantly under inspection, particularly in a running joke about the misunderstandings that arise from everyday phrases such as “call me a cab”.
On top of that, of course, it’s glaringly apparent that Phileas Fogg can’t even make himself a cup of tea – let alone get around the world with only one change of pants – without the help of his servant Passepartout, who is funny and foreign and also very definitely a woman wearing a fake moustache.
We shouldn’t get carried away: this is by no means a layered philosophical examination of the colonial legacy – it’s a bit of family-friendly fun performed by an actor-musician ensemble using a strong physical comedy style, and constantly drawing attention to its own lack of resources. That doesn’t mean there’s any lack of resourcefulness in a staging where a piano and a tuba become an elephant, and a hot-air balloon flight is evoked with magical simplicity. There’s some terrific audience interaction too, and though there are times when the material seems perilously thin and the acting broad, the show is delivered in such an engaging fashion that you can’t help cheering Fogg and his companions on. Anyone who says otherwise is talking poppycock.
- At Tobacco Factory until 18 July. Box office: 0117-902 0344.
