★★★✰✰
Invisible, a one-man show written and performed by Nikhil Parmer, has returned to the Bush Theatre for a short run before making its off Broadway debut. It centres around Zayan, a struggling actor who’s only recognisable work to date has been starring in a fried chicken advert, and who has an 18 month old daughter with an ex-girlfriend he is still hung up on. He’s stopped going to auditions as he’s only ever put up for small side parts, pigeonholed as a ‘brown actor’ that the film industry does not value in the leading roles.
At first, it appears to simply be a rehashing of the well trodden story of a down on his luck, self-pitying man who’s exasperated friends and family can’t understand why he’s so incapable; à la every mid-2000’s comedy. But it transforms to ask questions of identity, validation, and to what extent we will go to feel truly seen.
As the story progresses, Zayan explains to the audience that the play is taking place at some unspecified time in the future where Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has been eradicated, replaced instead by Chinese extremism. For Zayan this becomes increasingly inconvenient as now even roles casting him as the villain have disappeared. Despite the clumsy delivery of this exposition, the unique premise does cleverly make space for some thought provoking ideas to be explored.
Is it better to be hated than to be invisible? Does Zayan truly care about the revolutionary ideals his cousins espouse or, as they suspect, does he just want a quick route to fame? Parmer skillfully explores these threads, embodying a varied range of characters with ease and exquisite comedic timing. The jokes arrive thick and fast from the start, eliciting genuine laughter from the audience, and they are smart if a bit predictable; often you know exactly what the punchline will be before it lands.
Parmer uses his physicality, under expert direction from Movement Director Diane Alison-Mitchell, to differentiate between scenes and characters so seamlessly that you often forget he is the only actor on stage. The lighting, by Laura Howard, and sound design, by Bella Kear, are also essential in seamlessly allowing the story to jump between past and present, keeping clarity and anchoring the audience in each time and place.
A twist ending brings a very meta tone to the play, and whilst it is an entertaining reveal it also functions as a cheap way to wrap up the story in a neat 60 minutes, raising more questions than it answers. Parmer is certainly an extremely talented actor and writer, tackling pertinent issues with pace and humour. But whilst good storytelling should not necessarily spoon feed the audience or prescriptively instruct us on what to think, Invisible could perhaps benefit from addressing some major loose ends that remain resolutely untied.
Words by Mairead Zielinski
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