REVEW
✭✭✭✭✭ 5/5
The 39 Steps
Dates 17 - 30 Mar 2024
Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
Billet Lane
Hornchurch
RM11 1QT
✭✭✭✭✭ 5/5
The 39 Steps
Dates 17 - 30 Mar 2024
Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch
Billet Lane
Hornchurch
RM11 1QT
An hysterical night out
I’ve always been a fan of the Richard Hannay books by John Buchan, until I re-read them recently and realised what a misogynist he was.
However, there is none of that in this recreation of the story by Fiery Angel Productions. This very funny play seems to be largely based on the Robert Donat/Alfred Hitchcock film interpretation. John Buchan is reported to have declared that Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 black and white film of The Thirty-Nine Steps was a better story than his own.
The play is back on tour after nearly ten years in the West End, and is a fast-moving send up of the anarchist spy movies of old. Richard Hannay, an old-fashioned stiff, upper lip type well played by Tom Byrne, finds himself on the run suspected of murder. The story follows his escape and the various people he meets on the way; additionally, he’s arrested by fake police, and has to spend the night handcuffed to a woman who thinks he’s a murderer. All the other characters are played by just three people, Safeena Ladha, Eugene McCoy and Maddie Rice.
This hilarious play has all the characters exiting and entering within minutes of each other. They reappear in costume as different people, the police, hotel landlords, the master spy with the cut off finger, the memory man, a milkman, the love interest and the murdered woman. She dies across Hannay’s lap in an over the top death scene. Of course, we are in the area of The Play That Goes Wrong, telephones ring at the wrong time, chairs are not in the right place and Hannay is stuck trying to escape through a window frame. One very funny moment happens when he looks out of the window to observe men outside who rush on stage with a lamppost. They have to keep returning every time he walks over to the window. Another scene has our hero going back and forth through the same door, supposedly into different rooms, which requires excellent comic timing.
I was amused to see that there were even references to haddock. I’ve always thought it was odd that in the movie a woman comes back to a man’s flat for the night and he cooks her a haddock. In this production, he never got the chance as she told him she was off haddock.
Along the way, there are nods to North by Northwest with our hero running through the Moors being machine gunned by airplanes (in silhouette), silent movies and Keystone Cops.
The play has an excellent box set with curtains and a proscenium arch, which is not usual nowadays. However, the fun revolves around the creation, with only a few bits of wood and furniture, the Scottish Moors, the Forth Bridge with Hannay clinging onto it, and even a steam train that chugs across the stage. Meanwhile, chairs are repositioned in full view into a very effective motor car.
The whole play whips along at a fast pace and covers every aspect of the original story, driven along by Tom Byrne. He is the only actor who remains the same character throughout and acts, in the formal style of the old British movies, which is hilarious.
Praise must be given to the backstage crew, particularly, Toby Sedgwick, the Movement Director. Having to arrange all the comings and goings must have been a complicated task. Additionally, the director originally Maria Aitken, Fiona Buffini and for the tour Nicola Samer must have had a hysterical time keeping it all together.
The play is brilliantly conceived and very funny. The packed theatre was hooting with laughter all through the evening.
Review - Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
The performances continue at the Queens Theatre:-
Tue 19 Mar 2024 -7.30pm
Wed 20 Mar 2024 -7.30pm
Thu 21 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Thu 21 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Fri 22 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Sat 23 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Sat 23 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Mon 25 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Tue 26 Mar 2024 -7.30pm
Wed 27 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Thu 28 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Thu 28 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Fri 29 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Sat 30 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Sat 30 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Live audio description | Sat 23 Mar | 2:30pm
Box Office 01708 443333 or email [email protected]
A Fiery Angel in Association with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch production
However, there is none of that in this recreation of the story by Fiery Angel Productions. This very funny play seems to be largely based on the Robert Donat/Alfred Hitchcock film interpretation. John Buchan is reported to have declared that Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 black and white film of The Thirty-Nine Steps was a better story than his own.
The play is back on tour after nearly ten years in the West End, and is a fast-moving send up of the anarchist spy movies of old. Richard Hannay, an old-fashioned stiff, upper lip type well played by Tom Byrne, finds himself on the run suspected of murder. The story follows his escape and the various people he meets on the way; additionally, he’s arrested by fake police, and has to spend the night handcuffed to a woman who thinks he’s a murderer. All the other characters are played by just three people, Safeena Ladha, Eugene McCoy and Maddie Rice.
This hilarious play has all the characters exiting and entering within minutes of each other. They reappear in costume as different people, the police, hotel landlords, the master spy with the cut off finger, the memory man, a milkman, the love interest and the murdered woman. She dies across Hannay’s lap in an over the top death scene. Of course, we are in the area of The Play That Goes Wrong, telephones ring at the wrong time, chairs are not in the right place and Hannay is stuck trying to escape through a window frame. One very funny moment happens when he looks out of the window to observe men outside who rush on stage with a lamppost. They have to keep returning every time he walks over to the window. Another scene has our hero going back and forth through the same door, supposedly into different rooms, which requires excellent comic timing.
I was amused to see that there were even references to haddock. I’ve always thought it was odd that in the movie a woman comes back to a man’s flat for the night and he cooks her a haddock. In this production, he never got the chance as she told him she was off haddock.
Along the way, there are nods to North by Northwest with our hero running through the Moors being machine gunned by airplanes (in silhouette), silent movies and Keystone Cops.
The play has an excellent box set with curtains and a proscenium arch, which is not usual nowadays. However, the fun revolves around the creation, with only a few bits of wood and furniture, the Scottish Moors, the Forth Bridge with Hannay clinging onto it, and even a steam train that chugs across the stage. Meanwhile, chairs are repositioned in full view into a very effective motor car.
The whole play whips along at a fast pace and covers every aspect of the original story, driven along by Tom Byrne. He is the only actor who remains the same character throughout and acts, in the formal style of the old British movies, which is hilarious.
Praise must be given to the backstage crew, particularly, Toby Sedgwick, the Movement Director. Having to arrange all the comings and goings must have been a complicated task. Additionally, the director originally Maria Aitken, Fiona Buffini and for the tour Nicola Samer must have had a hysterical time keeping it all together.
The play is brilliantly conceived and very funny. The packed theatre was hooting with laughter all through the evening.
Review - Jacquee Storozynski-Toll
The performances continue at the Queens Theatre:-
Tue 19 Mar 2024 -7.30pm
Wed 20 Mar 2024 -7.30pm
Thu 21 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Thu 21 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Fri 22 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Sat 23 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Sat 23 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Mon 25 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Tue 26 Mar 2024 -7.30pm
Wed 27 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Thu 28 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Thu 28 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Fri 29 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Sat 30 Mar 2024 - 2.30pm
Sat 30 Mar 2024 - 7.30pm
Live audio description | Sat 23 Mar | 2:30pm
Box Office 01708 443333 or email [email protected]
A Fiery Angel in Association with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch production
