The 39 Steps

A century after its origin as a John Buchan novel and eight decades after Hitchcock’s adapation to film, The 39 Steps has, with Patrick Barlow’s stage adaptation, metamophosed from a tense thriller into a period comedy adventure of timeless appeal.

The acting, critical to the production’s comedic success, was generally brilliant.  Patrick Galen-Mules’s Richard Hannay (briefly and hilariously posing as a Scots politician) was the drama’s constant anchor.  I couldn’t possibly enumerate the various characters that Helen McFarlane, Steph Roberts, and Nelson Blattman metamorphosed through, costume changes and all.  Their wonderfully portrayed contradictory characters and Galen-Mules’s upper-crust constancy played off each other extremely well via timing, gesture, and voice.

Satirising the spy plots of yesteryear, the play adds comedy by cleverly ackowledging its staginess; cast members switch characters through quick, minimal costume changes — before the audience’s eyes or while out of sight for a moment — and sets and props alter and misbehave before our eyes.  The timing in switching sets, costumes, and props (let alone special effects), some of which were inherently absurd, must have entailed organisation on a grand scale.

It’s a mark of brilliant direction and stage management that, despite the complexities, the timing was impeccable, the staging pitch perfect, and set and character transformation seamless.  

See this production; it’s sure to delight you.

John P. Harvey

Photographer: Helen Drum.