PLAY REVIEW: Kevin Quantum: Invisible Force ★★★

There is something contradictory about Kevin Quantum: a physicist who has spent years trying to understand the laws of reality, now making a living by cheerfully breaking them.

In Invisible Force, Quantum turns the Ballroom at the Assembly Rooms into a laboratory of disappearing objects, impossible balances and audience participation. The conceit is that the invisible forces governing the universe might have human counterparts: love, fear, curiosity and belief. It is an ambitious idea, and occasionally the science feels more like an elegant wrapper around the magic than its essential mechanism.

Quantum is a mesmerising, engaging presence, equally comfortable explaining a scientific principle and sending a volunteer into fits of delighted disbelief, with William Miller’s direction keeping the hour moving, as Azariah Felton’s lighting gives the demonstrations a suitably clinical theatricality. 

There is perhaps too much material competing for a single overarching idea, and not every audience interaction lands equally well, but Quantum understands the fundamental currency of magic: wonder. By the end, even the cynics may find themselves looking twice.