Trafalgar Theatre
Patrick Barlow‘s spoof version of the Hitchcock film, itself based on a John Buchan thriller, tells the story of Richard Hannah on the run from German spies and the British police, using minimal props and multiple theatrical effects. At the beginning of the century, it ran in the West End for nine years. It won an Olivier Award for Best Comedy and a couple of Tonys for Best Play and Best Direction during its Broadway run. Although it has hardly changed, this revival has not proved as popular with the critics as one might expect for such a previously successful show. The cast were praised, but the reviews were divided between those who thought the play was a classic farce and those who found it ‘creaky’.
[Links to full reviews are included but a number are behind paywalls and therefore may not be accessible]
Marianka Swain, popping up at LondonTheatre (4★), was a fan: ‘Balancing suspense with slapstick, and a cracking yarn with theatrical in-jokes, it’s a welcome piece of thoroughly escapist entertainment.’ ‘One moment you’ll be giggling at the sheer ridiculousness, the next gasping at a surprisingly brilliant coup de théâtre,’ she promised. She praised all the cast, mentioning ‘Safeen Ladha is a hoot as Hannay’s various love interests’.
Alun Hood at WhatsOnStage (4★) liked it a lot, ‘It’s quirky, swift, ingenious and altogether a smashing hour and three quarters in the theatre.’ He explained: ‘It takes a lot of skill to make something look this hilariously ropey, and the show delights in the unashamedly theatrical … It’s inventive and often very silly, but it never sends up the story itself’. The cast were praised, in particular, ‘Maddie Rice is the epitome of somebody with ‘funny bones’.’
CityAM‘s Adam Bloodworth (4★) enthused, ‘The 39 Steps is an homage to the roots of theatre: these skits could have been performed 100 years ago. That they still work today is testament to the power of clowning and physical theatre, without massive technological bells and whistles, to amuse and delight.’
Franco Milazzo’s review for BroadwayWorld (3★) starts well: ‘Patrick Barlow’s parody The 39 Steps creaks and groans in places but still has plenty of laughs’ but ends ‘there’s a dated feel about this play that lacks the audacious physical japery of later stage spoofs like The Play That Goes Wrong.’ Fiona Mountford at i-news (3★) found, ‘Time hangs heavy as one fast-paced escapade hurtles into the next, given that emotional engagement with these characters is vanishingly hard to come by.’
Calling it ‘sluggish and lethargic’, Claire Allfree in the Telegraph (2★) pointed out, ‘Speed, in short, is of the essence. But speed is precisely what’s missing in tour director Nicola Samer’s production’. Dave Fargnoli in The Stage (2★) said, ‘for all the slickness of the staging, this is a creaky piece that displays little love for the source material’.
Chris Wiegand for The Guardian (2★) also thought it didn’t work: ‘Too often you sense the wheels turning instead of losing yourself in the fun. The play should be equal parts thriller, comedy and romance – an ambitious mix – but it doesn’t satisfy on any of those levels.’ He concluded, ‘the result can sometimes feel less like a thrilling race against the clock and more of a garbled rush.’
While his peers compared it unfavourably to The Play That Went Wrong, The Standard’s Nick Curtis (2★) had a different comparison in mind: ‘this revival looks tired compared to successors in a similar vein, most obviously the sublime mini-musical Operation Mincemeat’.
Critics’ Average Rating 2.9★
Value rating 42 (Value rating is the Average Critic Rating divided by the typical ticket price.)
The 39 Steps can be seen at Trafalgar Theatre until 28 September 2024. Click here to buy tickets direct from the theatre
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