Norwich Theatre Royal – until Saturday 22nd June 2024
Reviewed by Boo Wakefield
5*****
If you were expecting a paean to John Buchan’s novel and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, then you came to the wrong show! This is instead a show that will have you laughing uproariously and leaving on a happy, on an emotional high. The plot of the novel provides no more than the period setting and the thread from which this wonderful comedy is. Adapted by Patrick Barlow and directed by Maria Aitken, it is British tongue-in-cheek theatrical comedy at its splendid best, poised somewhere between pantomime, Noel Coward, slapstick and light-hearted satire.
Four actors play an impossible number of roles, each hugely different in stature and style and, often, gender. Tom Bryne playing Richard Hannay fluctuates wonderfully between the urbane and dashing gentleman-about-town in three piece tweed and pencil moustache, admiring every woman he meets, and the stuttering, bashful Hugh Grant-esque Englishman he is reduced to by every woman he meets, each of them played brilliantly by Safeena Ladha. It doesn’t seem fair in the programme to describe Eugene McCoy and Maddie Rice as “Clown 1” and “Clown 2” as they frequently each play two different characters on stage at the same time and are the beating heart of the fun, zipping in and out of character and costume constantly, always with a flourish and a knowing twinkle in their eye.
Peter McKintosh (Set and Costume Design), Ian Scott ( Lighting) and Mic Pool’s (Sound) combined work carried the momentum of this play relentlessly; it never faltered. Clever use of doors on wheels and hand-held window frames allowed the actors’ energy to roll from one set to the next. The theatricality of the steam train journey to Scotland was genius, reducing the audience to laughter and applause, and the use of shadow puppets as Hannay flees over Scottish moors was genius and even afforded a subtle tip-of-the-hat to Alfred Hitchcock. The unexpected entrance stage-left of a lamppost with two stooges lurking beneath it as Hannay peeped from behind a curtain was timing and theatre at it’s funniest and had the audience in stitches.
Filled with “dad jokes” you can see coming but with immaculate timing worthy of Tommy Cooper or Eric Morecambe making them irresistibly funny, there hardly seemed to be a moment without laughter.
So energising to enjoy on an evening free of political or “values-based” messaging or snide mockery masquerading as comedy, and, instead, a play of uplifting, uncomplicated and unbridled fun, fun, fun!