Time travel is fun says star of Time Machine at the Octagon

H G Wells’ classic novel The Time Machine arrives at Bolton’s Octagon Theatre tonight and even the cast admit it’s a show unlike any other.

“We’ve had some people say ‘I don’t know what we’ve just seen but I thoroughly enjoyed it',” said Dave Hearn, one of the three performers bringing this fast-paced production to life. “It’s certainly a unique show; it’s not a traditional retelling of the novel that’s for sure.”

In this version of the Time Machine, Dave plays Dave Wells, great great grandson of the author who with two friends is in a theatre company about to stage The Importance of Being Earnest. During rehearsals he discovers his famous forefather’s original manuscripts and his time travelling chair and becomes convinced that he was writing about fact not fiction.

He persuades his fellow performers to abandon Oscar Wilde and instead put on a dramatisation of this scientific discovery. From there all sorts of chaos and mayhem ensues.

“I’ll admit we ask a lot of our audiences,” said Dave. “But the show is a lot of fun. It’s a bit of a sledgehammer of a show, you can’t resist it and if you go with it, you will have a great time.”

When it comes to on stage mayhem, Dave is definitely someone you can rely on. He was one of the founders of the Mischief theatre company which has produced the hugely successful Shows That Goes Wrong productions.

Rather than being in Bolton next week, he could have been on Broadway in the company’s latest export Peter Pan Goes Wrong. But he turned his back on the bright lights of New York and is instead working with the team which brought The Hound of the Baskervilles to the Octagon in 2021.

“I got the offer to go to Broadway back in October but I turned it down,” said Dave. “I think part of me just wanted to move away from Mischief for a while and see what that was like. I had been to Broadway with the Play That Goes Wrong so I knew what I was missing but it it just seemed the right thing to do.

“I’m still very heavily involved with Mischief holding meetings and writing new things but professionally I just wanted to try something new. So for this production it’s nice just to be a gun for hire and not have so much responsibility for a show.”

Having been with Mischief for 15 years, working with different performers on The Time Machine has proved a new experience.

“Thankfully we all got on from the outset and developed a great relationship very quickly,” he said. “There are only the three of us on stage so that is very demanding. You have to put your trust in each other. I think the first preview show we did we were woefully under rehearsed and it all went off the rails pretty quickly but we got through it and that kind of adversity very quickly helps you to bond.”

Dave describes The Time Machine as very much being ‘a show of two halves’.

“The first half is more about telling the story and setting the scene and then the second half is completely different, anything can happen,” he said.

The art is in making what looks like total chaos be hugely entertaining.

“Initially I think I underestimated the challenge,” said Dave. “It is quite complex and there’s a lot of jumping around and by the end of each show I was exhausted. I’ve done a lot of big physical shows but this one really takes it out of you, there’s no respite.”

Although not ‘a sci-fi geek’ Dave admits he enjoys science fiction and has recently completed the Dune trilogy of novels.

“I love gadgets and technology and bits and I love science,” he said, “so if I could time travel I’d definitely go into the future to learn more about the discoveries which we will make.”

The Time Machine, Octagon Bolton, Wednesday, April 12 to Saturday, April 22. Details from www.octagonbolton.co.uk