Comedy
Watch The Trailer for Award-Winning Production, The 39 Steps, which comes to Dublin this year
The West End show, The 39 Steps, comes to Ireland in 2016 to celebrate the show’s tenth anniversary. This exciting production is adapted by Patrick Barlow and is based on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie and John Buchan’s 1914 spy thriller ‘The 39 Steps’.
The 39 Steps follows hero Richard Hannay in a dangerous tale of cat-and-mouse from London to the Scottish Highlands. In this hilarious production four actors play over 130 characters in 100 minutes. Richard Ede (Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Beauty and The Beast) plays Hannay, Olivia Greene (The Wizard Of Oz, Oliver) plays the three women in Hannay’s life – Pamela, Annabella and Margaret – and they are joined by Andrew Hodges (More4’s Iraq: The Bloody Circus, BBC’s Hands on History) and Rob Witcomb (BBC’s Casualty, Oxford Shakespeare Company’s As You Like It) who play a host of other characters.
Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of The 39 Steps opened in 2006 at the Tricycle before moving to the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly Circus, London where it played for nine years and was seen by over 1 million people. It won the Olivier Award for best new comedy. During that time, it attracted worldwide attention and the show toured to over 40 countries, including the cities of Moscow, Tokyo, New York and Paris, reaching a global audience of over 3 million. The production won a Molière Award for Best Comedy in France, and a Helpmann Award for Best Comedy in Australia. In 2008 The 39 Steps was produced on Broadway and was subsequently nominated for the Tony Award for best play.
Patrick Barlow is well-known for his involvement in two-man epics such as the following which have been performed on stage, radio and television: The Charge of the Light Brigade, Zulu!, The Black Hole of Calcutta, Wagner’s Ring Cycle, The Messiah, and many more. His shows have won two Sony Radio Academy Awards, a Premier Ondas and New York Festival Award for Best Comedy.
The 39 Steps was also famously adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock in what is widely regarded as one of the best films from his early period. The stage production makes reference to a number of the legendary scenes from this 1935 thriller, including the chase on the Flying Scotsman train and the escape on the Forth Road Bridge.
This production of The 39 Steps is directed by Maria Aitken, with design by Peter McKintosh, lighting by Ian Scott, sound by Mic Pool, and movement by Toby Sedgwick. The Associate Director is James Farrell. It is presented by Edward Snape for Fiery Angel and Tricycle London Productions with the West Yorkshire Playhouse.
Watch the trailer for this brilliant production:
The 39 Steps comes to The Gaiety Theatre 29 March – 2 April 2016. Tickets are on sale now.
