Theatre doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to superheroes. What immediately comes to mind is the $75 million-dollar musical Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark from 2011. Written by U2 frontman Bono, it was a production plagued by disasters – the main one being the endless array of injuries that befell its web-slinging cast.

So, when I was told last week that an injury in the cast of Emilie Collyer’s Marvel-inspired Super meant I’d be reviewing it midway through its season, my mind started running. What acrobatic spectacle or physical battle royale had they been trying to replicate in the intimate confines of Red Stitch Actors’ Theatre?

Lucy Ansell, Caroline Lee and Laila Thaker in Super. Photo @ Cameron Grant, Parenthesy

Thankfully, director Emma Valente’s death-defying (or death-tempting) stunts in Super are less high-octane. Don’t get me wrong, though: this show is arguably more ambitious than the DC-inspired Broadway flop. There are near-heroic feats of design and direction peppered throughout this impressive production, tackled by a game and acrobatic cast you’d never know had been recently struck by injury.

Collyer’s part-homage, part-pastiche to the superhero genre sets its sights closer...