Review | Local Hero, Minerva Theatre, Chichester: 'You won’t be able to take your eyes off it'

Out of the darkness bursts the aurora borealis, and cutting through the shimmering light is a comet streaking through the cosmos.

It is an image that Local Hero comes back to time and again, literally shining a light on our own mortality while also being at risk of erasure by humanity’s hubris.

Adapted from a Bafta award-winning film, the year is 1983 and oil has been discovered in the North Sea, off the coast of a little fishing village called Ferness in Scotland.

The news filters through to an oil company in Houston, Texas, and its ageing CEO Happer is determined to build a refinery there – so he sends his best man, Mac, to the sleepy village to strike a deal with its residents.

Happer also tasks him with a second mission: to find a comet in the vast, unspoiled skies of the Scottish Highlands that he can name after himself.

At first, the plot feels familiar. The city slicker has to adapt to the eccentric locals with humorous results and finds himself falling in love with the very place he has been tasked with bulldozing.

Tony Award-winner Gabriel Ebert, who makes his UK stage debut as Mac, brings goofiness and warmth to a character who could easily have been played as the stereotypical yuppie.

So when he saw that night sky rendered above him for the first time the child-like wonder in his face is plain to see.

From this point on, I was invested as his business trip turned into a self-existential quest, asking those bigger questions about what is home and even the purpose of life.

If the beginning seemed familiar, the conclusion bucked the typical Hollywood happy ending I was expecting – all for the better.

In fact, the climactic moment was one of the most simple yet effective lighting designs I have ever seen. Mac pours handfuls of sand out of his pockets and the way it shimmered and refracted like the Northern Lights themselves was just perfect.

Much like this natural wonder, this show takes some patience at first.

But once the spectacle has begun you won’t be able to take your eyes off it.

Until November 19.