39 rib ticklers

THE 39 STEPS
Tricycle Kilburn

PICTURE the casting ad now. Actors wanted: must have a rubber face, an arsenal of silly voices and silly walks, and the ability to lift one eyebrow independently of the other. The latter is a physical ‘talent’ some of us will never master but a vital tool for quizzical double takes and looks of comic surprise in the world of parody and lampoonery.
Doesn’t sound like The 39 Steps? Doesn’t sound like the secret agent thriller, first a novel by John Buchan and then a film by Alfred Hitchcock. That’s the twist at the Tricycle. Instead of re-telling how toffish bounder Richard Hannay (Charles Edwards) gets framed for murder, goes on the run and scoots across Scotland in a bid to clear his name, this is essentially a comedy. A caper. A wide-eyed spoof of all things Hitchcock.
It’s also a joke within a joke. Why would anyone even attempt to bring a story which involves hanging from the Forth Bridge, chases along train rooftops and wild pursuits across misty highland bogs to a tight theatre space? They wouldn’t. And if they did try it, they wouldn’t use just four actors sharing 150 parts.
This play laughs at the idea of even trying to do that and then does it anyway with an imaginative series of transitions and improvisation. On stage for most of the evening, Edwards has the requisite 1930s tash, tweeds, a raffish tone and that essential hitched eyebrow.
His quality is matched by love interest Catherine McCormack, who spends much of the second half chained to Edwards. For Hitchcock, a scene where she attempts to remove her stockings while handcuffed is supposed to be seductive. Here it is another cause for a slapstick laugh, full of rolling eyeballs and amusing clumsiness.
Some of the gags are cheap, a lot of them cutesy theatrical tricks you will have seen before, such as the old chestnut: Pause. Main lead ‘That’ll be the phone’. Pause. Then the phone rings. Ha. But there is so much energy here that it feels fresher and wittier than before.
Simon Gregor and Rupert Degas are two perfect clowns who play 146 of the 150 parts. More rubber faces. More silly voices. More suggestive eyebrows. There was giggling in the stalls from the off and it would take a real grump not to find reason to smile.
Until September 9
020 7328 1000

CLICK HERE TO BOOK THEATRE TICKETS

CLICK BELOW TO SEARCH FOR ACCOMODATION