Originally published by L.S. Media. December 8th 2009.
Cast: Richard Braine, Dugald Bruce-Lockhart, Katherine Kingsley, Dan Starkey.
The team behind the Liverpool Playhouse pulled a real cracker for its final performance of the year and decade and watched it explode in delight, laughter and a touch of good old fashioned British daring do.
John Buchan’s classic The Thirty Nine Steps has been given the comedy treatment and like Spymonkey’s reworking of Moby Dick earlier on in the season it was excellently written and had the benefit of some superb comic acting.
The cast was only a four hander but they worked their collective socks off, not only by playing all the parts available but by moving the props and parts of the set as they moved around the stage. In other plays this would possibly have got lost in amongst the story and confused the audience but in the capable hands of director Maria Aitken it worked to perfection. The wonderful scene where the hero, Richard Hannay, is escorted through the household to where the party is taking place is an absolute joy of comic timing as they go through the same door several times without breaking pace.
Literary hero Richard Hanney was played by the tremendous Dugald Bruce-Lockhart who played the part of the accused murderer and would be crime solver to great effect. His visual use of props was second to none and in well honoured theatre tradition got the girl who was elegantly played by Katherine Kingsley.
Katherine stands out as a very versatile actor who can turn humour into the glimpse of sadness and anger in the blink of an eye. She was able to do this with great effect as she played the three main women in the story and her almost touching portrayal as the much put upon farmer’s wife will leave you breathless.
Richard Braine and Dan Starkey are the unsung heroes of the play as they act admirably every other male part (and some of the women as well) with, what seems, great ease. The quick costume changes would have been tricky at the best of times but these two actors ran round like whirling dervishes all night and always made their mark correctly.
The play deserves the credit the critics have heaped upon it and deserves the winner of best new comedy awards it has received over the last couple of years.
A production you would gladly climb more than 39 steps to see.
Ian D. Hall