In the teeming marketplace of Edinburgh theatre, biographical dramas are a smart way of tapping into existing interest in a figure. Last year, in Kingmaker, writers Robert Khan and Tom Salinsky put David Cameron and Boris Johnson on stage and now offer another double-Tussauds play with Impossible, which padlocks Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle into a duel of credulity.
After watching a performance in which the illusionist seems to summon up the ghost of a murder victim, the novelist visits him in the dressing room to insist that the death-defying trick just achieved in the theatre can be seen for real at a seance, where the showman might, for instance, be reunited with his beloved late mother.
This situation has the makings of of a sharp investigation of illusion and delusion. Conan Doyle sneers at readers who believe that Holmes and Watson are real, and yet believes that his dead son speaks to him in the parlour of a suburban living room. Houdini, dismissive of those who are convinced that his escapology is supernatural, can’t resist the challenge of becoming the first (for Christians, second) person to escape death.
However, like Kingmaker, Impossible proves to be better as an idea than a piece. Apart from a sharp scene in which Houdini logically disproves his mother’s apparent resurrection by a spiritualist, the stodgy dialogue often sounds like a speaking Wikipedia, delivering essential facts to the audience. Alan Cox nicely captures the vanity that would eventually be fatal for Houdini, but even the appealing personality of Phill Jupitus can not survive his bizarre miscasting as Conan Doyle, forcing him to focus less on characterisation than hanging on to a Scottish accent.
Admirers of the central characters and of Jupitus should ensure a Fringe hit: it was filling a 250-seater even early in the run. Finally, though, the title of the play invites a response that proves impossible to resist: implausible.
- At the Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh, until 31 August. Box office: 0131-226 0000
