In taking our seats to watch North by Northwest, there’s a feeling we’re all thinking the same thing as we get cosy. How will they pull off the infamous airplane scene? How will one of the most famous cinema moments translate to stage? We all know it’s coming.
The string of screen-to-stage adaptations seems to be gathering pace rather than easing down after numerous failures. The intellectual property seemingly is too hard to resist for producers—and who can blame them when a report by the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre, released last week, described an industry “struggling with rocketing production costs” and “in need of urgent funding”. In taking on North by Northwest, former Shakespeare’s Globe artistic director Emma Rice has provided herself an enormous challenge to get right.
Of course, this isn’t the first time the director has decided to walk in the same shoes as the great Alfred Hitchcock, with both taking on Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca in their respective media. It’s also not the first time the audience has been treated to an adaptation of a Hitchcock classic. We’ve had The 39 Steps, Rear Window and even recently at Theatre Royal Bath, a musical staging of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Rice’s production company Wise Children, based less than 15 miles away in Frome, brings many of Rice’s favourites back together. The programme notes demonstrate just how much of a company the cast and creatives are—and this absolutely shows. From the beginning, it instantly feels different to those scene-for-scene remakes so often utilised. Rice has provided a theatrical spin to proceedings—so easily thought up but difficult to deliver. With tall Madison Avenue-style revolving doors shaping the scenes, the audience is treated to a quirky take on a classic. The music choices (Simon Baker) accompany sharp 1950s-style choreography (Etta Murfitt), with just the right amount of audience participation for it to be fun and interactive.
The cast features Ewan Wardrop as Roger Thornhill, played so iconically by Cary Grant in the film, and Patrycja Kujawska as Eve Kendall, who both appear in the same tailored grey suit and red-and-black dress as the characters do in the film. The pair ooze chemistry with Wardrop’s Grant-like charm and Kujawska’s mysticism. The pair are wonderfully supported by Katy Owen as the professor (and narrator), who steals the plaudits with her expert comedic chops, alongside Phillip Van Damm (Karl Queensborough) and his aides Valerian (Simon Oskarsson) and Anna (Mirabelle Gremaud).
It may not necessarily be a natural choice for Emma Rice—as she admits in her programme notes—but this local outing for Wise Children is a delight throughout. It hits all the right spots and makes for a superb adaptation. With enough nods to the film to feel like a homage, Rice’s creation feels like a breath of fresh air in a saturated screen-to-stage market. Maybe the infamous chase scene atop Mount Rushmore struggles to translate to stage, but there’s no denying everything else works. It has tongue-in-cheek in all the right places.