39 Steps Live Theatre Review

Earlier this summer on the 14th of August at the Criterion Theatre in Oxford Circus, I went the evening performance of The 39 Steps. The 39 Steps was originally a book by John Buchan set before the First World War, the book was later adapted into a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. It was a serious book and film following a bachelor called Richard Hannay who meets a mysterious German woman at a play, the women begs him to take her home with him and later reveals she is a spy trying to discover the truth about an organisation trying to steal British defence plans and something called the 39 steps. Later the women is assassinated in Hannay’s home and he is the main suspect, he sets out to try and prove his innocence by finishing what the women started. He becomes involved with another woman named Pamela and tries to win her trust.
Patrick Barlow adapted this story further into a theatre production; however he turned it into a comedy. With a cast of only four they used physical theatre and many Brechtian techniques to turn a famous spy story into a joke. Apart from the actor who played Hannay all other actors constantly change roles. They do this by a quick change of costume sometimes in front of the audience. For example in one scene Hannay is on a train desperately trying to avoid two police officers asking if anyone had seen a man who matched his description. Hannay was sharing a carriage (they were sitting on two suitcases rocking backwards and forwards to suggest this) with two other commuters. One of them say they “will be back in a jiffy” stands up mimes leaving the carriage and then swaps his bowler hat with a police officer’s hat turns around and starts talking to the other two men in a different accent showing his change of character.
They also used a cyclorama and shadow puppets at one point to show Hannay being chased by police. This illusion was quick broken when the two actors “accidentally” dropped the cyclorama showing Hannay playing with the