There has been a proliferation of frantic small-cast comic adaptations of old novels—Octagon audiences have seen quite a lot over the last few years—but this 2006 adaptation of John Buchan's novel by National Theatre of Brent's Patrick Barlow, based on an earlier version by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, is the granddaddy of them all. It may not have been the first of its ilk, but its success at London's Tricycle Theatre (now the Kiln) and later in the West End and on tour certainly paved the way.
Barlow's script is closely related to Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 film version, and, unlike many I've seen in this genre, it tells the story of the original novel very well, and has some carefully composed slapstick set pieces integrated into it.
But it begins very simply, with Mateo Oxley's debonair Richard Hannay sitting in an armchair after the events in the story taking us back to where it all began, when he attended the act of Mr Memory at a London theatre and a shot was heard, then a woman with an indeterminate accent (Mei Mei Macleod) asked if she could come home with him. After she is shot dead during the night, Hannay is on the run from the police, who suspect him of murder, and some shady spy-type figures, ending up in Scotland at the home of The Professor—who turns out to not be what he appeared to be.
While Oxley plays Hannay throughout the play, the other three performers—Macleod plus the terrific Danielle Bird and Phil Yarrow, billed as Clown 1 and Clown 2 respectively—play many different characters, with some very impressive quick changes, re-entering as a different character from a completely different part of the stage. There are a lot of familiar 'goes wrong'-style gags, such as the phone continuing to ring after the receiver is picked up, something not coming on when it should and using an item of clothing to represent a character when the actor is playing someone else.
Some of the comic set pieces look great, helped enormously by Libby Todd's design, which is a basic wood-panelled floor and back wall with some surprises built in through its hidden doors with a spiral staircase up to a door-lined corridor across the top. A couple of striking uses of the set are the aeroplanes with the working fans built into the front and the lectern that turns into a car.
Ryan McBryde's production works well as a serious adaptation of the novel when it is telling the story, and the comic set pieces are largely effective, but there is a mismatch between the two, in that the gags interrupt the flow of the story—and even an early Hitchcock like this had a very lean and meticulously paced plot. Plus a lot of the gags now seem very familiar, even if this play did many of them first and, arguably, better than its emulators.
But even after nearly two decades, there is plenty to enjoy, and with a strong cast giving energetic performances, it produced plenty of belly laughs from the press night audience.