It was a neat trick back in 1991 when Theatre Workshop stalwart Ken Hill found enough money to transfer his music-hall version of H G Wells's The Invisible Man from the Theatre Royal, Stratford East to the West End. Now the show is being revived at the Menier Chocolate Factory, and such is this theatre's reputation you would not bet against another West End transfer.
The venue has spared no expense in recreating the wobbly-set aesthetic of old-school music hall, complete with an adroitly alliterative master of ceremonies who introduces a suitably motley crew of performers, led by the delectably delightful Maria Friedman.
They play the residents of the village where a strange visitor swathed in bandages takes a room in the local pub. It is immediately clear - if not transparent - that this is the eponymous Invisible Man, a scientist whose condition was caused by an experiment that went wrong and who now seeks the peace necessary to discover a cure. Frustrated by failure, he opts for the next best thing - world domination.
Wells's narrative poses some interesting questions, like, is being invisible as much fun as it is cracked up to be? Also, I wondered if the producers auditioned John Gordon Sinclair for the title role, and if so, did he have to turn up. But most of all, would the repetitive plot prove less than gripping?
The good little Englanders, led by Maria Friedman's buxom pub landlady Mrs Hall, are all that stand between mad scientist and the end of civilisation as we know it. During the romp to save the world, narrated by Gary Wilmot's tramp, there are some jolly, old-fashioned Theatre Workshop gags about Conservatives and bullying policemen, but much more entertainingly, illusionist Paul Kieve hones the techniques he used in the show's previous production to convince that an invisible man stalks the stage. Knives are held unsupported to throats, guns to head; drawers are searched, curtains disturbed and Mrs Hall's breasts are fondled - yet there are no visible strings.
Ian Talbot's production stays true to the anti-establishment Theatre Workshop spirit of the original. But try as they might, this talented cast - which includes Jo Stone-Fewings's secretly clever upper-class idiot and Geraldine Fitzgerald as the new village teacher he fancies enough to reveal his big fat intellect - cannot elevate the level of entertainment above that of amusing. This is an evening of benign smiles rather than ecstatic guffaws. (Tel: 020 7907 7060)