The name Robert Hooke may not mean much to many people but a one man show, Hanging Hooke, that will be performed at The Rose Theatre next week is aiming to change all that.

Hooke was a 17th century polymath and a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Christopher Wren. He was a brilliant architect, artist, engineer and scientist, collaborating with Wren on the building of St Paul’s Cathedral, devising Hooke’s Law of elasticity and for many year’s he was the curator of experiments at The Royal Society.

Chris Barnes, 62, who performs Hanging Hooke says that the show explores the reasons why Hooke has not been given the recognition he deserves, an exploration that leads to some intriguing and somewhat murky discoveries.

“The show doesn’t lecture the audience, in fact, it is a thriller,” explains Barnes.

“The question is why have we have not heard of this person who is generally considered to be London’s Leonardo Da Vinci?

“The reason we don’t know about him becomes the thriller element of the drama and there is a villain of the piece who turns out to be Newton. He was the longest-serving president of The Royal Society and there were machinations going on - he took credit for Hooke’s theories on gravity and it is believed that he had a portrait of Hooke destroyed.”

Hanging Hooke tells this story in two parts. In the first Barnes, a former Tiffin Boys' School pupil, takes on the role of Hooke’s guardian, an artist who first brought him to London from the Isle of Wight, and in the second part the actor becomes Hooke himself.

Although he still remains obscure to many, in the last few years more and more has been learnt about Hooke, particulary thanks to the discovery in 2006 of a folio containing a personal record of his time at The Royal Society.

Hanging Hooke has been doing its bit to contribute to a greater appreciation of its subject for the last three years and Barnes says he and the show’s author Siobhan Nicholas are “delighted to be part of an unfolding story”.

As a boy Barnes lived in Ashtead and after leaving Tiffin Boys in 1968 went on to study at Durham University before forging a career as an actor. He currently lives in Brighton but is relishing the prospect of performing in Kingston, the place where he discovered his love for theatre when performing in a number of school productions He says: “There is a sense that I’m going back to my early days. The play relies on a wonderful relationship that one person can have with the audience and in The Rose there is a real closeness between the stage and the auditorium and I’m looking forward to performing there immensely.”

Hanging Hooke, Rose Theatre, Kingston, September 13, 7.30pm, rosetheatrekingston.org