Superb comedy walking tall

THE 39 STEPS, Opera House, Manchester
What I find amusing about Patrick Barlow’s brilliant Mickey-take is the way it changes, while not actually changing much at all.

This third national tour — the second since it won umpteen awards in the West End — is quite different in tone from the one that appeared at Salford’s Lowry two years ago.

Then it seemed bigger, a little slower and a little overwhelmed by the size of the theatre — for when originally seen in the small Lowry theatre, en route to London, in 2005, it was small, sharp and brilliantly fresh and funny.

This time, laden with critical praise, professional awards and productions running in almost 40 countries, it returns to a big theatre but is different again.

Redirected since actress Maria Aitken’s original, this time it is a little broader, played obviously for the many big laughs in the script (where before they just seemed to fall naturally and cleverly from the same details and actors’ delivery) and with a cast of four that once again presents both Buchan’s famous story and manages to parody it and the entire Thirties adventure genre at the same time.

If you haven’t seen it, the show is a glorious bringing together of theatre conventions and stage trickery: the Forth Bridge is a ladder across two other ladders, the biplane hunt is achieved by a couple of shadow-puppet models on sticks, Hannay’s dash across the marshes is by shadow-puppet reindeer and Loch Ness monster.

Boxes become train seats, porters become policemen then passengers and so on, with 30 or more characters played by just four actors — Richard Braine and Dan Starkey, who play almost everyone between them, Katherine Kingsley as the real women and the wonderfully-named Dugald Bruce-Lockhart as the dashing (and knows it) Hannay.

The show has had a few very minor changes (if my memory of previous versions is accurate), in the form of minor extensions to some scenes and minor cuts to others, all frantically delivered.

Overall though, Barlow’s silly, superb comedy of spies, subterfuge, secrets and cheap variety acts remains top of the form and a jolly decent night out, by Jove.