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The 39 Steps
Birmingham Rep
**** EVERYONE enjoys
a ripping yarn, a boy’s own adventure – especially, in the case of John
Buchan’s adventure novel,
The 39 Steps,
if you were a boy around 1914, when it was set. It was a time when black hearted assassins and
spies with obligatory dodgy foreign accents lurked around every corner.
The Balkans were in crisis and war in Europe was in the air and we
needed a jolly good egg like dashing, debo Alfred Hitchcock moved on to the next war with
his 1935 film based on the novel, with the implication the spies, still
foreign of course, were agents of the then current threat, Germany, but
we still had jolly good egg etc. Richard Hannay defying all the odds and
obstacles to save us again. Patrick Barlow’s 2005 stage adaptation follows
Hitchcock’s film almost line for line . . . except it only has a cast of
four – plus a stray arm that no one knows anything about – playing more
than 100 parts and special effects which look like they were knocked up
by The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic
Society on a budget of less than a tenner. This is a solid gold, Olympic standard spoof. In short it is glorious, riotous, magnificent and, very British, fun. Olivia Greene as Pamela and Richard
Ed as Hannay on the trail of the mysterious 39 steps.
Pictures: Dan Tsantilis Richard Ede has the easy job of playing Richard
Hannay, with no costume changes to speak of – you can hardly claim
wearing an overcoat or a milkman’s overall as a change – and the same
easy, refined accent of an obvious gentleman throughout. Oh, and he does have to run from the police as a
suspected murderer and from spies and assassins as a threat to their
operation; and he does have to scramble over the girders of the Forth
Bridge, clamber through windows, run along the roof of the Flying
Scotsman, escape over boggy moors and for good measure get shot. He might be on stage for the whole time but at
least he only has one part to remember and Ede does a spiffing job as
the jolly, good etc Hannay. The love-hate interest if provided by Olivia
Greene who opens as freelance spy Annabella Schmidt, who sadly never
makes it past the second scene, but gives Hannay a clue as to where the
secret of the 39 steps is the be found - Alt-na-Shellach – which appears
to require a speech impediment and bronchitis to pronounce correctly. She then appears as Pamela, who gives him up to
police on the train, hence the running on the roof, then Margaret the
frustrated wife of an ancient crofter, then back to Pamela, handcuffed
to Hannay and captured by assassins, after giving him up yet again.
Quite a busy lady. The real grafters though are Andrew Hodges and
Rob Witcomb who play the population of Scotland, the Metropolitan
police, train Oh, and there is also the arm that no one knows
about but which changes the course of history. It is madcap and fun, with some lovely touches,
such as Hannay dealing with Annabella’s corpse and phones that don’t
ring until told to, or fires that wait for the script before bursting
into flames. There have also been some additions to the play
which has matured quite nicely since I first saw it some years ago now. Andrew Hodges as Man 2 and Rob Witcomb as Man 1, shadowy foreign agents lurking under a lampost they appear to carry with them . . . While Hitchock produced a thriller, a serious spy
story building up suspense for a nation of cinema goers worrying about
the threat of an impending war, Barlow’s version, from an original
script by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, is played entirely for laughs
and there are plenty of them. The pace is breakneck and the jokes
whether spoken or seen come quick and fast. For any Hitchcock
aficionados there is also an I-Spy interest looking out for any nods to
other films by the master of suspense either by reference or music. Easy
to spot are Strangers on a Train,
Vertigo, just a mention,
North by Northwest
complete with aircraft, Rear Window,
Psycho and
The man who knew Too Much, among
others. Directed by Maria Aitken it has a wonderful air
of improvised chaos, as if it is a real flying by the seat of your pants
performance, which in turn demands impeccable timing and a skilled
slickness that only comes from hours of rehearsals. The constantly changing scenes are a tribute to
Peter McKintosh’s clever designs while, with a new scene every few
minutes, Ian Scott’s lighting and Mic Pool’s sound have to be spot on,
even down to a loud slap on the face, or a glance through a . . . rear .
. . window. Technically there is much to admire; the
production is slick, it speeds along at the pace of a runaway train, is
well acted, but most of all it is fun; a gloriously, daft, silly couple
of hours of sheer entertainment. To 05-03-16. Roger Clarke 30-02-16
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nair
Richard Hannay to save the day.
passengers, newspaper sellers, boarding house proprietors, assassins,
spies, crofters, ladies’ underwear salesmen, a spymaster with a missing
fingertip and his wife, various inanimate objects and, I almost forgot,
Mr Memory, star of the key London Palladium variety show.