Invisible – Bush Theatre, London

A review of Invisible, written and performed by Nikhil Parmar. This darkly comic one hour monologue is on at the Bush Theatre for a limited run.

Invisible

It’s perhaps fitting given the title, but Invisible is one of those plays where you don’t necessarily notice the change in tone until you find yourself wondering “When did this become so dark?”. It’s part of the Bush50 Studio Season, the work of writer and actor Nikhil Parmar, whose experience in TV comedy is put to good use here. Invisible is the story of Zayan, a jobbing actor who might have more jobs if he actually went to auditions. Or would he? The circumstances of his life – co-parenting with his ex who is ready to date again, no money, seemingly nothing going right – and the ‘death of a thousand cuts’ of racist micro aggressions, are making him feel invisible. If not even the bin man deigns to notice you any more, what do you do?

Well, maybe quite a lot! I don’t want to post any spoilers so will just quote the Bush Theatre’s synopsis. Zayan, in a quest to go from invisible to notorious, is driven “to do the unforgiveable”. This is the darkly comic ending that I didn’t quite see coming. Invisible starts off in purely comedic, breaking-the-fourth-wall territory. Zayan takes us into his confidence as he uses all the sitcom and film tropes (flashbacks, foreshadowing) to tell his story. Like he says, a good story sows the seeds for the climax at the outset. Zayan certainly does this, even if I didn’t realise the direction he was going to head in. It’s a clever piece of writing, taking our world with one small (?) but significant difference in order to explore how if feels to always be reduced to less than personhood.

Can You See Me?

It was the complexity of Invisible which I really enjoyed. Parmar packs a lot into an hour. There’s a fully developed character, and a sense of how his own background, story and actions have contributed to certain stagnation in his life, compounded at every turn by the reductionist way in which society views him. Is he ever going to play James Bond, or just keep going for auditions as ‘the Indian doctor/cab driver/shopkeeper’. If you’re used to being seen as ‘other’ but then that gaze shifts to someone else, what does that do to your identity and sense of self? How do you even assert a sense of self when there’s no space for you to do it? There are some deep and confronting questions here, and Parmar doesn’t hesitate to dig right into the darker corners of the acting profession (and by extension society at large).

Invisible is also a real actor’s piece of writing: very knowing in its jokes, audience asides and running gags. Parmar is energetic and engaging as an actor. He keeps us in his confidence even as the monologue turns dark, finding the laughs in increasingly bleak realisations. Zayan is a very relatable character. There are a lot of additional parts which Zayan voices: perhaps a few too many accents to distinguish them all, but it does help to keep them separate. I look forward to seeing more of Parmar on stage and screen!

I also absolutely loved the combination of set and lighting design for Invisible, by Georgia Wilmot and Laura Howard respectively. Wilmot’s set is very minimalist: three interlocking house shapes with different textures. Yet when combined with Howard’s lighting, it evokes homes, streets, a hospital, and more. It’s impressively effective.

So get along to the Bush Theatre before 16 July to catch Invisible. You can find tickets here: why not check out the rest of the Bush’s 50th Anniversary season while you’re at it?

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 4/5

Invisible on until 16 July 2022