Writer: Bren Gosling
Director: Scott Le Crass
After a dodgy and clichéd-heavy start, Bren Gosling’s comedy about three people at the cusp of their 60th birthdays is warm and gentle entertainment. But despite Invisible Me being set in the present day, Gosling’s characters feel as if they should be in a play set 30 years ago or so. Does any 60-year-old you know drink Cinzano or dial up the speaking clock just to hear someone’s voice?
Jack (a reliably good James Holmes) is still grieving the death of his male partner, while his neighbour Alec (a likeable Kevin N Golding) is a black-cab driver who acts as if he’s younger in his leather jacket, chatting up women with corny one-liners at his local café. Living around the corner is Lynn (Tessa Peake-Jones playing the most delineated character), a cleaner at Walthamstow Travelodge who barely speaks to her fellow employees.
Their lives are empty, and although loneliness is a serious issue for older people, the inner lives of Jack, Alec and Lynn come across as unrealistically uncomplicated. After Jack sees his psychoanalyst at Oxford Circus, he eats a “passable” sausage casserole in the café at John Lewis. After work, Lynn makes herself a mushroom Cup A Soup and then settles down to watch Loose Women. These details recall the monologues of Victoria Wood and Alan Bennett, but the intervening decades make Invisible Me old-fashioned.
Even though the stories that unravel are about sex, everything is so cosy that it never shocks one bit. One wishes for more bite, more depth. The denouement, when finally the three meet, is kind-hearted, but the play goes nowhere near the real problems that 60-year-olds can face.
Scott Le Crass directs with speed, always moving his actors around the stage, and so the 90 minutes go by quickly. However, these are good actors, and they deserve sharper material.
Runs until 2 May 2026
