In 2021, HG Wells fans were aghast at the Royal Mint giving the Tripods an extra leg and the Invisible Man the wrong kind of hat on a new £2 coin. Well, shield your eyes, Wellsians! Here is a goofy comedy that makes the author himself a time-traveller, adds songs by Cher and jokes about Harry and Meghan, and invites one audience member to dress up in a monstrously bad Morlock outfit.
The Time Machine propels readers into the year 802701 to find a burning world riven by class conflict – pertinent themes for a bold comic treatment. But Steven Canny and John Nicholson’s script draws on the 1895 novella to focus almost entirely on tricksy gags about the logic and paradoxes of time travel. The show is structured around the over-familiar concept of actors putting on a shambolic play within the play. The effect, as with the recent adaptation of The Lavender Hill Mob, is frustratingly tinny.
