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Around the World in 80 Days: a topping show




Around the World in 80 Days at the Oxford Playhouse, from July 25-29, reviewed by Jon Lewis

Juliet Forster’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s 1872 novel Around the World in 80 Days is an entertaining production framed like a box within a box. A group of circus artists for Verne’s circus decide to enact the story by remaining faithful to the book. They also dramatise a linked narrative of an American investigative journalist, Nellie Bly, who emulated the fictional Phileas Fogg, the hero of Verne’s novel, by circumnavigating the globe in 1889 in only 72 days. The scenes with Bly (Katriona Brown) are used to challenge Verne’s patriarchal novel with contemporary interpretations, ensuring that the past is another country with its own set of values and beliefs. Bly brings a feminist critique to the play as well as a certain ‘truth’ that contextualises the novel.

This Theatre Royal York production, promoted for a national tour by Tilted Wig, infuses play with intricate circus skills. Fogg (Alex Phelps) is played by the ringmaster as a calm, focused adventurer who never loses his confidence in his mission despite facing many obstacles. His French servant, Passepartout (Wilson Benedito) never loses his clownish attributes, tumbling into difficulties. The fidelity to the novel is also realised in Passepartout’s running gag of inflating a red balloon, something we are told only occurs in film and television versions of the novel.

Around The World in 80 Days
Around The World in 80 Days

Fogg is followed by Detective Fix (Eddie Mann), played by the circus’ knife-thrower, who erroneously believes Fogg to be a criminal he wants to arrest. Fix and Passepartout develop a relationship full of comic physicality as the gullible Frenchman is blown off course by Fix’s skullduggery.

Forster creates thrilling storm-tossed scenes on decks using only a couple of ladders and some ropes, The best gag is where a plastic chicken is squashed back into a top hat in a reverse of the magician’s routine where he pulls a rabbit out of the hat. When Fogg rescues an Indian Parsee woman, Aouda (Genevieve Sabherwal) from being burned alive, her journey sitting atop an elephant is cleverly realised with just a step ladder, an outstretched leg and a couple of veils for the elephant’s ears.

Fun.



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