Around the World in 80 Days review – the world’s stage, circumnavigated

Laura Eason’s 2013 adaptation of Around the World in 80 Days plays adroitly with audience expectations of Jules Verne’s story. Phileas Fogg, having laid a £20,000 bet with his fellow whist players in London’s Reform Club that he will circumnavigate the world in only 80 days, is stranded in the United States. From between the bars of the New Vic’s lighting rig, a miniature air balloon slowly descends. “There is no balloon in the book!” admonishes Fogg, indicating the Bradshaw’s guide in the hands of his valet, Passepartout, who is desperately seeking a connection to get them home on time. The miniature balloon rises, unused, into the shadows.

There is no balloon in Verne’s 1873 book, either – although one was introduced in the 1956 film version starring David Niven and Cantinflas – but there are trains and boats, an elephant and a sailing sledge. On stage, these are dextrously assembled by the performers from suitcases, clothing and an umbrella: Lis Evans’s minimal design maximises the potential in audience imagination. The energetic, eight-strong cast, not content with impersonating around 100 characters, enlist audience assistance to help conjure illusions – all the while keeping disbelief bobbingly suspended.

While all this is indubitably rollicking good fun, I missed Verne’s sly, ironic sideswipes at stock market and empire (comments on colonialism given to Mrs Aouda came across as forced). Also, I wondered why, when the French are represented by berets and baguettes, Italians by straw boaters and ice-cream, and people in Hong Kong by coolie hats, Native Americans were removed altogether and replaced by cowboys.

That aside, Theresa Heskins’s direction lacks nothing in verve and elan. James Atherton’s music is so much part of the action it is almost a character in itself, and the main roles are just as you could wish them: Andrew Pollard’s cool Fogg melts in response to Kirsten Foster’s lively, charming Mrs Aouda; Dennis Herdman’s Inspector Fix foxes and fights Michael Hugo’s sentimental, belligerent, clown-esque Passepartout, who almost steals the show; and the remaining few, who play many, invoke a whole world.