‘The 39 Steps at the Queen’s Theatre is bursting at the seams with dad jokes, puns and manual flapping of coats and hats.’

Our Theatre reviewer Ruth Kettle Frisby went to watch the latest box office hit at the Queen’s Theatre-The 39 Steps.

The 39 Steps performed at Queen’s Theatre is an absolute riot; a nostalgic romp that’s ripe with puns and lashings of physical humour, each element captures the imagination for a spellbinding performance of action and accidental adventure.

Sepia browns and creams transport us back to 1914, juxtaposing effectively with the scarlet-curtained spectacle of The London Palladium, which bookends this neatly circular tale. 

The play showcases not only the immense talent of the four actors who pull the performance together, but the water-tight direction and ingenious use of minimal props in space. Stand-out moments include bounding across old storage trunk carriages, toy parachutes, and a beautiful model steam train rattling (think baby’s rattle!) across the stage. The flimsy fourth wall is subjected to playful puncturing throughout, assisted to hilarious effect by understudies, Hannah Parker and Jacob Daniels.

Safeena Ladha stole the show with her versatility, comic delivery and her natural ability to contort herself into each brilliantly executed character.

Tom Byrne does a fantastic job as poor old protagonist Richard Hannay, with his clipped accent and naïve charm, our unsuspecting hero lies somewhere between James Bond and Bertie Wooster; his comical self-deprecation and laid-back wit contrasts nicely with moments of impassioned cheerful optimism.

Maddie Rice’s performance really stood out for me; both her characters and her lightening transitions between them kept the audience bursting with laughter throughout amongst a superbly handled calamity of accents and hats!

Eugene McCoy delivers peak moments of brilliance ranging from side-splitting humour (and verbose skill!) to touching pathos in the many characters he portrays.

Bursting at the seams with dad jokes, puns, manual flapping of coats and hats, and cheeky incidental references to some of Hitchcock’s classics – Hitchcock himself duly cameoed in shadow-puppet form – this performance of The 39 Steps is a hilariously entertaining production, pitched perfectly for the stage.

Photo credit to Mark Senior.

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