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The
39 Steps |
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Emily
Berry | |
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Adapted from Hitchcock classic The 39 Steps and the John Buchan novel of the same name, this production is a witty retort and more to those who said the piece was 'unstageable'. Rather more farce than thriller, Patrick Barlow's version of the classic sends up its original genre with originality and affection. A mere four actors expertly play innumerable parts with pitch-perfect irony, racing through the action and dragging the audience along with them. This energetic and genuinely funny piece, first performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, is surely bound for the West End. Charles Edwards plays Richard Hanney, the upper class gent whose encounter with the mysterious femme fatality Annabella Schmidt (Catherine McCormack) - and the fact that she is found dead in his abandoned flat - places him as the prime suspect for her murder. Fleeing the scene of the crime, he embarks on a farcical journey to discover the truth behind 'the 39 Steps', managing to get himself handcuffed to the attractive Margaret (a more demure McCormack) along the way, while the police and an organization of Nazi spies give chase. Meanwhile Rupert Degas and Simon Gregor brilliantly convey an ever-increasing collection of oddball characters, including the excellent 'Memory Man' (Gregor), the variety show performer who can recall any fact, and his audience-quelling compere (Degas). Send-ups can be a dodgy area, because they are so hard to do well. Stereotyped, derivative characterisation is in full force here, but to hilarious effect. McCormack's Annabella Schmidt has a breathy, unplaceable accent, veering wildly between German, Russian and French and drawling out warnings through a fog of cigarette smoke, while Edwards, rigidly British in tweeds, wears an raised eyebrow and a quizzical expression through every spot of bothah. It's the actors who carry the show with their expert comic timing, only very occasionally overdoing it; but the production as a whole rarely misses a beat either, remaining true to the foibles of the genre it is mimicking. 'Hello - there's the telephone!' announces Edwards, before the phone begins to trill, while missing props are shoved onstage at the moment they're required. The staging is basic, but adds to the humour - a single wooden square designates a window, to be climbed out of by putting it over the head and down the body like a hula hoop; while the slightly exaggerated swaying of the actors suggests the movement of a train or a car. When the actors gather for the curtain call at the end of the show, it is something of a shock to remember that there are in fact only four of them. It's no secret of course, but throughout The 39 Steps the stage seems peopled with such a variety of honky showmen, smoky seductresses, bent detectives and oddball hoteliers that it seems rather hard to believe they could boil down to so few. This is fun, quintessentially British comedy, spoof noir at its very best. Till 9 September 2006.
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