Review: INVISIBLE ME, New Wimbledon Theatre Studio

We're in Walthamstow with Alec, Lynn and Jack. In one sense, they are as ordinary as their names; in another, they've made the decisions you do en route to your 60th birthday, each of which has branched off the straight and narrow and led them to their own unique destinations. None of them are happy there.

Lynn meets Stella who opens a door to easy money and an excitement - no, a self-determination - that she hasn't felt in decades. Alec's eye wanders to a woman half his age, but it's Steely Dan's "Hey Nineteen" all over again with two worlds too separate to breach. Jack is mourning his husband, but decides to take his psychologist's advice and soon finds a whole new community on Facebook.

Bren Gosling's bittersweet (briefly) intersecting monologues reminded me a little of reading Maeve Binchy's London-based short stories of some 40 years ago - the poignancy, the gentle comedy, the moments that reflect our own lives. There's that persistent ache of loneliness that suffuses even in the brashest and boldest of cities, the hobbling reluctance to let go of the past, the overwhelming need for validation after too many knocks. Not everyone will admire these characters' choices, some may find their redemptions a little glib, but nobody, in and around 60 years of age, can say that they have never thought of what might be were they to discard the past and embrace a radically different future.

Director, Su Gilroy, keeps the pace up over an hour's running time and, just as we're satisfied that the three lives are working themselves out, we're done - brevity matters for lots of reasons once you're 60 or so...

She is rewarded with three strong performances. Debbie Christie sails close to Carry On era Barbra Windsor, but stays the right side of caricature and we never question the credibility of her journey from bullied housewife to dominatrix camgirl. Andrew Fettes is all Cockney cabby bravura, capturing that middle aged man's conundrum of being smart enough to know it ain't gonna happen, but fooling yourself anyway. Philip Gill's journey is the most obviously transformative and, even if some of men he meets are hypocrites and chancers, you nod when he recounts the comfort of another human being's presence in bed, whilst also retaining a true and respectful grief for his husband.

It's usually a mark of a fine play to be left wanting to know what will happen after the lights go up and I'm interested in the fates of our three new Freedom Pass holders. We leave them in a much better place than we found them - action, as ever, the antidote to anxiety - but there are hints that much could go awry. After all. plenty does in your seventh decade.

Invisible Me is at New Wimbledon Theatre Studio until 11 September.

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