Based on the true story of writer and star Maia Novi, Invasive Species opens with a life-altering realisation: Maia wants to be in the movies. But not the low-budget Spanish movies that blare out of the tinny speakers at her local cinema in her homeland of Argentina. Maia wants to be in “big, American movies” like The Amazing Spider-Man — the movie that triggers this epiphany in her youth.
Before she knows it, she’s caught hook, line and sinker by The Acting Bug (brought to gloriously creepy life by Harrison Osterfield, playing one of several roles), setting her on a path of unsuccessful stints at acting schools in France and London before finally getting into Yale School of Drama.
Disaster strikes weeks before her all-important final year showcase, however: after seeking treatment for persistent insomnia, Maia finds herself admitted to a children’s psychiatric ward at the age of 25. Confronted with angsty teens, useless doctors and dictatorial nurses, she attempts to adjust to her new reality — despite her insistence that she doesn’t belong there at all.
All the while, we see shards of her fragmented mental state start to glimmer through her intrusive thoughts, which sometimes take the shape of an insufferable film director casting her as Eva Perón in Evita. Through these surreal scenes, we see the harsh reality of Maia’s status as an immigrant actor: her ‘otherness’ is sometimes celebrated, but only when it fits the prescriptive box she’s being pigeonholed into. Other times, she’s flat-out berated for not being “American enough”, having learnt to style her accent around Gwyneth Paltrow’s “morning Goop routine” video, which becomes a prophetic daily mantra of self-doubt.
The mania that ruptures through Novi’s script is brought out sublimely by director Michael Breslin, who employs a frenetic sound and lighting design (by Dominic Brennan and Ben Jacobs, respectively) to give the most heightened moments a compulsive urgency. But while the fast, loud scenes are largely thrilling, key emotional beats can rush by too fast — namely, the exploration of Maia’s relationship with her mother — in favour of the quicker bursts of comedy, such as a dodgy date and a night out with her classmates.
But you can’t bemoan this too much, because Invasive Species is indeed very funny. Novi throws herself into the physical comedy of her larger-than-life thespian persona, while multi-character performers Ella Blackburn and Max Percy get many of the night’s biggest laughs.
Kalifa Taylor also portrays multiple characters, but her responsibilities differ slightly. Primarily playing troubled 16-year-old Akila, Taylor brings a vital grounding to the piece as she slowly helps Maia to face her true reality. As it turns out, the solution to getting out of the youth ward was exactly what Maia has been fighting all along: becoming who everyone else wanted her to be.
Invasive Species is an exhilarating, unflinching piece of theatre that deserves to put Maia Novi’s star firmly on the rise.
Invasive Species runs at King’s Head Theatre until 3rd October. Tickets are available at: https://kingsheadtheatre.com/whats-on/invasive-species-q1qt
Reviewer: Olivia Cox
Reviewed: 6th September 2025
North West End UK Rating: