The spotlight falls on Houdini's lesser-known but ever vital wife and assistant in this intriguing, illuminating production

Escapologist Harry Houdini was a legend in his own lifetime. His headline-grabbing stunts, involving mystifying, often lurid escapes from chains, padlocks, water tanks and suspension from skyscrapers, ensured that his reputation would live on long after his death. He boasted that he had 'muscles of iron', but it was after a series of wilfully invited punches to the stomach that he died on Halloween, 1926.

He was born Erich Weisz in Budapest in 1874. Four years later the family emigrated to Wisconsin, where Houdini's father served as rabbi of the Zion Reform Jewish Congregation. A few years into his career as a magician, Houdini met his assistant and wife Wilhelmina Beatrice 'Bess' Rahner. The pair's fascination with spiritualism, debunking false claims of communicating with the dead, led to the pact they made that the first to die would try to communicate from the spirit world. With many a movie, book and show based on the great escapist's life, it is in fact Bess who's brought to intriguing life in this unusual new drama.

We meet her in February 1929 in what appears at first to be an elegant drawing room, but soon turns out to be a high-end sanatorium where she has secluded herself to escape the hostile press accusing her of attempting to contact her late husband under false pretences. She is deep within the clutches of drink and despair, and seldom alone, for her doctors and devoted nurse Anna keep constant watch, though perhaps fail to listen to her.

Carefully researched and immaculately cast by the newly-formed Escape Artists Theatre Company (director James Weisz, playwright Christine Foster, production assistant Angie Lawrence and actor and trained circus performer Pip Henderson as Bess), their affection for Bess is evident from the start. Henderson is entirely convincing from her character's first nervous tic. Her distress is palpable and heartbreaking as she conjures her beloved husband, especially reading aloud his treasured love letters, sent when they were separated by the occasions when – purportedly – he was forced to travel ‘alone’. She comes into her own as she demonstrates with assurance and authority how convincing a seance can be.

Gwenneth Holmes’ Nurse Anna comes over as wonderfully warm and comforting as she offers constant hugs to her charge. John-Christian Bateman gets to play the men here – figures of authority, doctors, a policeman and Houdini’s brother. The magician himself is heard (voiced by Jack Kristiansen) and ‘embodied’ by various ingenious means, including a doll and a life-size poster. Detailed design by JC Hudley creates that elegant drawing room and dresses Bess in gorgeous 1920s costumes and accessories, with period wigs by Sean Chapman and magic/effects input from Paul Zenon, Magic Circle member and Houdini expert.

The meat of the play is Bess's attempt to keep her promise to her husband and try to prove once and for all whether she can contact him. Does she succeed? And is she in for more disappointment than she bargained for? Go and see this gripping drama to find out.

By Judi Herman

Photos by James Weisz

Bess: The Other Houdini runs until Sunday 12 November. 7.30pm, 4pm (Sun only). £24, £22 cons. Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London, N6 4BD. 0208 340 3488. upstairsatthegatehouse.com