Theatre / A Balloon Will Pop At Some Point During This Play, at ACT Hub. November 8-9 . Reviewed by ALANNA MACLEAN.

The Hub is a tiny venue, but is made even tinier with a small bank of end-on seats for Andrew Macmillan’s solo exploration of what Douglas Adams used to call Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Written by Macmillan and directed by Eric Loren, this is engaging stuff done as a kind of lecture complete with slides, a lectern and a mysterious tethered red balloon.

Macmillan explores life, death and existence in a genial fashion, not above the occasional exchange with the audience, but mostly on a course that involves the eternal questions of how did we get here, what are we doing here and what is our place in a huge system of galaxies.

Mixed into this is the odd attempt at self-annihilation, a bout with the Oracle of Delphi involving Oedipus, much musing on the vastness of space and some tantalising attempts to puncture the balloon with what looks awfully like Hamlet’s bare bodkin.

Human relationships and their importance are touched on fleetingly, pictures of the odd aged female relatives pop up and in one instance, late in the piece, archaeology provides a hugely resonant example of love that transcends death.

Macmillan has presence and humour and a skilled flexibility in working with an audience. It’s an enjoyable and sometimes challenging hour as the audience tries to remember all it has forgotten about history, philosophy and space.

And there are signs that a livelier audience than opening night’s might provide him with more of a chance to let loose.

Above all there’s the tensions of watching the red balloon’s near-death experiences. Will it survive? How will things be handled if it bursts half way through? I would guess that has been prepared for.

A short season but a good little show.

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