THE 39 STEPS.

Nottingham.

THE 39 STEPS
adapted by Patrick Barlow from John Buchan.

Theatre Royal: to 2nd February 2008.
7.30pm Mat Sat 2.30pm Sat.
Runs 1hr 50min One interval:

TICKETS: 0115 989 5555
www.royalcentre-nottingham.co.uk.
Review: Alan Geary: 28 January 2008.

A brilliantly done send-up. Enormous fun.
If you think of the thirties as nowt but dole queues and slag heaps you’re wrong. This Tricycle Theatre/West Yorkshire Playhouse 39 Steps takes us back to a world where excitingly glamorous women wore suspenders, pipe-smoking was all the rage - and didn’t cause bad breath and brown teeth - and trains were pulled by proper engines.

Adapted by National Theatre of Brent founder Patrick Barlow and directed by Maria Aitken, this leans on the rather comic 1935 Hitchcock film rather than Buchan’s original thriller (which was surely influenced by that earlier novel of the chase, R L Stevenson's Kidnapped). So it has a sexy female victim at the start instead of that American bloke, there’s love interest - and the title is rendered irrelevant to the plot.

The humour’s at three levels: you can laugh along with the 1935 audience, at the parody of the film, and the “bungles” of the present company: delayed sound effects, over-zealous supporting actors, etc. A cast of four attempt and “fail” to cope with (we’re unreliably informed) a hundred and thirty-nine parts. At some critical moments an actor ends up talking to himself.

A virtue is made of the make-do-and-mend minimal props and mime, and sound effects are outstanding. When it sends up not only thirties film but wireless as well it’s like Radio 4 at its funniest.

In two of the best scenes - all boiled shirts and pomposity - we become the audience in a beautifully-realised seedy music hall.

David Michaels, superb as Richard Hannay, is an Anthony Eden (the younger, thirties version) look-alike except that, instead of being dressed like a Fortnum and Masons floorwalker he’s tweedy. In three of the female parts, particularly as love interest Pamela, Clare Swinburn is comically sexy.

All the minor caricatures and stereotypes - forelock tuggers, Scotsmen, dastardly foreigners - are brilliantly done by Colin Mace and Alan Perrin.

All right, if this sort of thing was your staple diet you’d be under-nourished: great comedy is more profound, while this says something about upper-lips jingoism, deference and little else. But it’s enormous fun.

Man 2: Colin Mace.
Richard Hannay: David Michaels.
Man 1: Alan Perrin.
Annabella Schmidt/Pamela/Margaret: Clare Swinburne.

Director: Maria Aitken.
Designer: Peter McKintosh.
Lighting: Ian Scott.
Sound: Mic Pool.

2008-01-31 10:04:27