The 39 Steps

Review by: Paul Towers, 07 June 2016

Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps adapted by Patrick Barlow

Fiery Angel & Tricycle London production

Curve 7 – 11 June 2016

“great, great, great theatre!”

John Buchan’s novel The 39 Steps was first published in 1915 as a cerebral thriller told from the hero, John Hannay’s, perspective as he traversed the awesome majesty of the Scottish Highlands. Not great film or theatre fodder. However the three resulting films transformed the basic story into the entertainment that has become adaptor Patrick Barlow’s masterpiece of comic theatre.

The story is fairly simple, a bored, intelligent young man stumbles into a plot to smuggle military secrets out of the country. He is framed for a murder he didn’t commit and travels the length of the country in an effort to find and stop the spymaster truly responsible.

Given that the story famously involves car chases, airplane chases, train chases, escape across the Forth Bridge and even more car chases you would think this was not a natural story for theatre. But the designers, Peter McKintosh, Ian Scott and Mic Pool, along with movement director Toby Sedgwick have come up with a phenomenal production that not only tells the story with just four actors but manages to convey a myriad of locations with just a few props, a single set and some remarkable sound & light.

The tiny company of just four actors provide a cast of dozens.

Richard Ede as John Hannay is all Boy’s Own hero with a smile that you expect to ping with brightness underneath a ‘surprisingly sexy pencil moustache’. Clad in an expensive tweed suit he strides around the stage striking heroic poses as he gestures with his pipe.

Olivia Greene, a local girl who studied in  Harborough Academy of Performing Arts, plays the three female characters in the show, including the initial murder victim that sets the ensuing drama in progress.

Andrew Hodges, another local alumni, plays Man 2, a somewhat unassuming name for the huge number of roles he plays. Along with Rob Witcomb as Man 1, this pair of hugely gifted actors people the stage with an astounding number of characters which appear at an astonishing rate with quick costume changes that defy logic at times. Add to this the accents they need to master, sometimes in the blink of an eye, and you have great, great, great theatre. At times their patter is reminiscent of ITMA’s Claude & Cecil while at other times you feel you are watching a Two Ronnies weekly serial.

As if this isn’t hilarious enough in itself you have the bonus of  things like the train running across the front of the stage, deliberately mistimed sound effects and the spectacularly funny sight of a giant shadow puppet show depicting the escape across the Scottish Highlands complete with an obligatory Alfred Hitchcock cameo overseeing the getaway.

This is theatre at its very best. Grab a ticket if you can and find out why this show played to packed out houses in London’s West End for nine long years.

First published on Western Gazette