It's been a classic novel and, in Hitchcock's hands, a hit film. And now, in these unpatriotic, unheroic times, John Buchan's The 39 Steps is a successful spoof, transferring to the West End from Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre.
Patrick Barlow's adaptation bears the hallmarks of his work with the National Theatre of Brent, in that it tells an epic tale while comically accentuating theatre's unsuitability for the task. It's very easy to enjoy the creaky jokes, quick costume changes and lo-fi coups de théâtre that result, even if I wished that Maria Aitken's production might eventually transcend its self-consciousness and make this thriller thrilling too.
The Boys Own-style yarn is sent up from the off, as a chisel-jawed Richard Hannay finds himself embroiled in the murder of a preposterously accented femme fatale. Taking her last words as his cue, Hannay heads to Scotland to foil a dastardly German spy and clear his name. Aitken and her four-strong cast deploy ladders to represent the Forth Bridge, leather trunks as the railway carriages across which Hannay bounds free from the police, and wobbly shadow puppetry as a crashing biplane. Our hero's death is repeatedly defied, in one instance by a bullet-proof hymnbook. "I'm not surprised," says the local sheriff. "Some of these hymns are terrible hard to get through."
If only this playful spirit could have been twinned with heartfelt storytelling. But it isn't; the story is thoroughly undermined. We're left just with laughs - albeit some very good ones. In pencil moustache and tweeds, Charles Edwards affectionately sends up the gentlemanly Hannay, while Catherine McCormack chews up the versatile stage furniture as various damsels in distress. Most fun is had, though, by the shape-shifting Rupert Degas and particularly Simon Gregor, doffing hats and donning wigs as a dour Scots farmer and an inaudible by-election speechifier.
The thrills may be meagre in this murder mystery, but the theatrical tomfoolery is to die for.
· Until January 13. Box office: 0870 060 2313.
