REVIEW: Invincible, Theatre Royal Winchester

According to master playwright Alan Ayckbourn: ”Torben Betts is the most exciting theatre writing talent I have come across in many a year...”

First performed in 2014, this is Betts’ fourteenth play, now touring the UK after successful London runs.

Exploring the social and cultural North-South divide, this delicious drama is both hilariously bittersweet and deeply thought-provoking.

Young London couple Oliver and Emily and their two-year-old child move to the North for financial reasons and to help assuage the loss of their other baby.

There, they invite new neighbours Alan and Dawn around for an introductory social evening. And the atmosphere is excruciatingly embarrassing, revealing, and very funny.

Superbly directed by Christopher Harper, the short scenes are pacy, dialogue crackles with misunderstandings, the humour a combination of slapstick and biting social commentary.

There is appalling symmetry between the death of Oliver and Emily’s baby and Alan and Dawn’s soldier son, later killed in Afghanistan.

As the mood darkens in the second act, the deception and deceit deepens as Alan’s beloved cat Vince (named after HMS Invincible) is killed by the enraged Oliver, who also has sex with Alan’s frustrated wife Dawn. Ambivalence rules!

The characters are played by four hugely talented actors – Emily Bowker and Alastair Whatley as the southern couple, Graeme Brookes and Kerry Bennett as their northern counterparts, with no hint of caricature or stereotyping.

Alan Ayckbourn beware; you’ve a new rival in Torben Betts.

Brendan McCusker