Savoy, London

Performed here until 15 December 1917 by a cast including Sydney Valentine (actor), H.B. Irving (actor), Edward Combermere (actor), E. Holman Clark (actor and producer), Tom Reynolds (actor), Fay Compton (actress), Marion Lorne (actress), Vane Featherston (actress), May Holland (actress). "Lately there has been a good deal of speculation as to the possibility of the dead communicating with the living, and Mr. Hackett is bold enough to dramatise or melodramatise the idea. His boldness may not be to all tastes, especially as it is done with little finesse and still less real psychology, but it proves theatrically effective. ...Mr Irving has, as Stephen Pryde, one of those parts in which he can display his sense of the macabre. It is a pity that Mr. Hackett has not put more into the part, for Stephen is a very inept sort of villian, with some obvious purple patches. Mr. Irving, if he cannot succeed in making him plausible or subtle, does succeed in making him eerie, and his distraught outbursts at the end of the second and third acts are vivid and moving. Mr Sydney Valentine, as the strong-willed but mortally-stricken Richard Bransby, gives a powerful bit of acting in the opening scenes of the play. Miss Fay Compton, who has done much very bright work in revue and comedy, has not yet altogether the measure of drama. She has little crudities of deportment and speech, and her expression of feeling is spasmodic and uncertain. But her work, in the part of Helen, uneven as it is, has the essential quality of acting in it as well as the gift of personality. Mr Edward Combermere is rather a brusque Hugh Pryde. Mr E. Holman Clark is genial and amusing as Dr. Latham, who has most of the good things to say in the somewhat common-place dialogue. It is not the fault of that able actor, Mr Tom Reynolds, that Morton Grant, with his humble aspect and apologetic speeches, is not remotely like the chief of staff of a great City firm. Miss Marion Lorne acts very cleverly indeed as a feather-brained widow; and Miss Vane Featherston, as the fussy Mrs Leavitt, and Miss May Holland as Barker, suitably complete the case. "The Invisible Foe" certainly scored a success with last Thursday's audiences; and Mr. Irving, after the author had been called on the fall of the curtain, had the pleasing task of acknowledging, in a few words of thanks, the abundant applause that Mr. Hackett's spiritist melodramatics had called forth." (Stage, 30 August 1917)