There is something faintly ludicrous about a plot that involves our hero confounding master spies, narrowly escaping beheading by biplane and scrambling for his life down the face of Abraham Lincoln.
Perhaps that is what attracted Emma Rice, for her adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller is gloriously daft, bursting with visual and physical humour that typified her time as artistic director of Kneehigh Theatre in Cornwall and later at London’s Globe.
Quiet advertising executive Roger Thornhill is mistaken for the mysterious George Kaplan, a supposed FBI agent, and kidnapped by the ruthless Phillip Vandamm before escaping with the help of the beautiful Eve Kendall, who seems however to be playing a double game.
Rice preserves a sense of the original, for this is not one of those plays-that-go-wrong, but I don’t know anyone else who can get way with such outrageous gags as having the biplane explosion represented by someone waving a red duster, or having Mt Rushmore contained inside a suitcase.
The show is a splendid celebration of Hollywood, not a send-up, with homage also to a golden age of popular songs, the cast miming, cross-gendered naturally, to tracks by the likes of Judy Garland, Peggy Lee and Billie Holliday, interspersed with knockabout dance moves that might have seemed cool circa 1959.
The ending, when the more serious stuff takes over, is the least successful part of the concept, but overall this is one of the most original shows I’ve seen in years, laugh-out loud funny, and one to amuse all generations.
Ewan Wardrop may not quite have the Cary Grant looks, but got a wolf-whistle for stripping down to his shorts for the shower—another Rice stunt that I won’t reveal—and plays Thornhill with a suavity that does not exclude making a joyous fool of himself in Etta Murfitt’s wildly knockabout choreography.
Katy Owen dons coats and disguises like a real spook, at one moment head of the American intelligence agency, at another a Puckish professor with a special line in audience-baiting.
Patrycja Kujawska is irresistible as the appropriately named temptress Eve, and Karl Queensborough plays Vandamm with a dark intensity, with Simon Oskarsson and the acrobatic Mirabelle Gremaud ably serving as his co-conspirators, the latter doubling as a maid who can throw in a few somersaults with the room service.
Rob Howell’s clever set comprises a row of 80 or more suits, a line of suitcases and four large rotating platforms like cocktail bars or revolving doors—suitable passageways for so many characters of changing identity.
The show's 2025 tour concludes at Alexandra Palace Theatre from 11 to 22 June. Don't miss it.