Review: Another Chance To Catch West End's Wildly Popular The 39 Steps
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Last Updated 20 August 2024
Such was the longevity of the original West End run of The 39 Steps, it got through 3,000 pairs of stockings, 530 O/S maps of Scotland, 38 pairs of handcuffs and 16 suspender belts.
The show — Patrick Barlow's farcical take on the Hitchcock film/John Buchan adventure novel about a man caught up in the murder of a counter-espionage agent — was nothing short of a sensation when it aired between 2006-2015. Over three million people — including myself back in 2008 — watched it (aptly) in one of 39 countries. Between now and the end of September, there's another chance to catch this on-the-lam escapade. But how does The 39 Steps fare in a West End that's evolved quite a bit in the past decade?
Never taking yourself too seriously always helps. First and foremost, The 39 Steps is a comedy caper — in particular, one that openly mocks its own budgetary limitations. Cars are hastily cobbled together with chairs that are lying around. Crude effigies are hurled from balconies. Everything delivered by the minimal cast (headed by Tom Byrne as the pursued Richard Hannay, all superb) is shrewdly knowing. "This was meant to be a four-person cast!" bemoans Maddie Rice, breaking the fourth wall at the moment a mystery ninth hand appears through the curtain brandishing a pistol.
While the West End has changed, not much in this staging of The 39 Steps has. It paved the way for other runaway successes, but has in some regards been left choking on their dust. The use of miniature vehicles and clever lighting to depict travelling has since been put to genuinely hilarious effect in Groundhog Day The Musical. The toffish, nice-but-dim classes are more snappily lampooned in Operation Mincemeat (a portion of the cast happened to be in on The 39 Steps' press night). It feels an odd thing to say of a play set 90 years ago, but there are times when The 39 Steps has a whiff of fustiness about it.
Ultimately, if you're after a genuine white-knuckle ride of a crime thriller, The 39 Steps is not it. The narrative doesn't so much escalate into giddy suspension, as merrily skip from one scene to the next. Still, the play remains a showpiece of low budget stage buffoonery, silly voices and whip-smart clowning. More than anything else, it will make you smile. And if that's your jam, then step to it and get yourself a ticket.
The 39 Steps, Trafalgar Theatre, until 28 September 2024
