Richmond Theatre – until 6 April 2024
Reviewed by Alec Legge
5*****
My first visit to the Richmond Theatre in Surrey, which is a lovely Grade 2 listed theatre in the heart of Richmond, overlooking The Green, a large grassy area. Once inside this 840 seat venue which is 125 years old, this year, the décor is as one would expect for a theatre built in the last part of the 19th century and is beautifully preserved.
So to the play itself which is a comedy based on the Alfred Hitchcock film of the John Buchan book ‘The 39 Steps‘. This is a much loved spy thriller and I wondered how it would adapt to being a comedy.
However right from the opening scene the show was fast paced and side-splitting funny. It was obviously well rehearsed and the use of portable scenery to add to the comedy was marvellous.
The actors were splendid; with Tom Byrne as Richard Hannay, giving a first class performance as the stiff upper lipped, pencil mustachioed, Englishman caught up in a spy plot and being wanted by the police for a murder which he did not commit.
Safeena Ladha was a tour de force playing three parts, Pamela, Annabella and Margaret. Her performance was sublime as the upper class, blonde, Pamela who gradually fell in love with Hannay,also the smart seducer, whose murder at Hannay’s flat and whose dying scene ends up with her falling horizontally on Hannay’s lap with a knife in her back and Hannays reaction was hilarious. Her third character, Margaret, the shy wife of a crofter, in mop cap and pigtails made her unrecognisable as the other two parts she played.
Eugene McCoy and Maddie Rice played so many parts that it is hard to list them all. They included spies, policemen, detectives, crofters, hoteliers and train passengers. Their possibly best scene being as the Memory Man and his assistant. The Memory Man being used by the spy ring to remember the state secrets as a means to getting the secrets out of the country. The scene at the London Palladium where the evil Professor and head spy shot the Memory Man while he was on stage and his denouement was uproarious.
All in all this show was the funniest I have seen for a very long time, the acting superb, the laughs coming every few seconds, the use of portable scenery such as doors on wheels and used for exits and entrances and windows moved about the stage, climbed through as though getting in and out of places, it was all so hilarious. Even though it was so funny the original plot of The 39 Steps was recognisable throughout.
I thoroughly enjoyed this show and would recommend it highly which is why I have rated it at 5 stars. Well deserved!