Something’s got lost in translation here. A long-running hit in Paris, Alexis Michalik’s 2014 play covers more than two centuries in 100 minutes, weaving a complex fabulation around the history of French pioneers of magic and cinema. But this English version is wilfully amateurish, full of oafish mugging, clumsy tricks and jokey British regional accents.
Director Tom Jackson Greaves probably carries more blame than adapter Waleed Akhtar, whose play The P Word impressed at the Bush last year, though the dialogue here is far from sparkling. Whatever: this is the latest in a string of misfires from Hampstead, which recently lost its Arts Council grant. It’s, sadly, also a poor start to London theatre in 2023.
