REVIEW: Father Brown - The Curse of the Invisible Man – at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Monday, September 21 to Wednesday, September 23, 2015.

SADLY there was something missing from this rare excursion for Father Brown onto the stage and it wasn’t necessarily the invisible man.

This was a production of pedestrian pace in urgent need of a spark to hold the audience’s attention. Unfortunately wrapping up two GK Chesterton stories as one - The Invisible Man and The Curse of the Golden Cross - provided a complex and considerably lengthy exposition close to the point of boring.

This was a shame as Chesterton’s creation of the cassocked sleuth has enjoyed enduring popularity since he first began his crime solving capers in the early 20th century and he has been played by a number of leading actors in films and television.

These have included Alec Guinness, Kenneth More, Andrew Sachs - in a radio series, and more recently Mark Williams in the BBC’s afternoon drama series which saw the tales updated to the 1950s and relocated to the Cotswolds - and how well those short stories worked.

The latest is John Lyons, still fondly remembered as Detective Sergeant George Toolan who was David Jason’s sidekick in that wonderful tv series - Frost.

He wears the mantle well, striving manfully along with the rest of the four-strong cast as they do their best to keep the action ticking over but their efforts would be better served by having someone take the secateurs to the script for some adventurous pruning.