Albert Einstein sits at his desk, eagerly anticipating his audience.
Today we are to help him with some thought experiments, for imagination can make dreams come true, including allowing him to talk to us in spite of his being dead these last 64 years. Knowledge is limited, but imagination is boundless.
His aim is not to explain his revolutionary science, although that will feature, but to make us curious to find out more.
Twinkly-eyed and avuncular, he talks of how he went from a rather difficult child to a modest, and largely unemployable young man before becoming a household name and the poster-image of “mad scientist”.
With closed eyes, we ride a beam of light and an airplane to reveal the mysteries of space and time and, along the way, uncover the man.
His life is contradictory, both simple, relishing nature and modest pleasures, and complicated by an absolute devotion to his science to the cost of his personal life. Unable to return to his beloved Berlin as an “enemy not yet hanged” of the Nazis, he is the pacifist who became the “Father of The Bomb”.
The production offers more than a glimpse into the human side of a man who is synonymous with the term genius, whilst moreover imbuing a sense of wonder without getting caught up in theoretical physics. Relativity is seen in the way time flies. The involvement of audience members, however, seems like a distraction that Einstein would never have contemplated.
A finely-performed portrait of a remarkable man pulled through time, but as theatre, the structure is a little more curious than genius.
Show Times: 31 July to 25 (not 13) August 2019 at 2pm.
Tickets: £8 (£7) to £10 (£9).
Suitability:8+
Note: Pip Utton is also performing his other solo shows “Adolf” and “And Before I Forget I Love You, I Love You”.