The Penny Dreadfuls: The Never Man

The Penny Dreadfuls have been one of my favourite Fringe stories for a while; evolving from The Improverts to create their own show, striking gold with Aeneas Faversham and graduating to prime billing at the Pleasance. After three years of Victorian exploits, you can understand the urge to move on to something new, but this latest venture just doesn’t quite reach the same standard. The old magic is definitely still present, but it waxes and wanes rather a bit too much, and the jubilant energy so evident in previous years is muted. The premise is suitably ridiculous and imaginative – apart from nicking the nice-but-psychotic computer idea straight from Portal – and the characters are certainly played with suitable melodrama. The creation of Paul, in particular, a police baton buying eight-and-three-quarter year old is a stroke of genius, and provides much of the humour. A still solid show with originality, The Never Man suffers simply because its predecessors were so damn remarkable.