THE 39 STEPS
THE 39 STEPS, Drama Theatre at the Sydney Opera House, to 30 August 2025. Photography by Cameron Grant
This four-person version of what is (very) loosely based on the John Buchan 1915 novel, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 spy thriller, has been around in a variety of award-winning configurations since 2005. It was the brainchild of longtime parodist Patrick Barlow, so anyone expecting much Buchan or Hitchcock is in for a (very) big surprise.
This new Australian touring adaptation opens on James Browne’s stylish Art Deco-ish set – all black and white, shadows, filmic trickery, and geometrics. It’s a long way from the bare bones-no set setting of previous productions, but is just as comically rickety. Onto it strolls…
Richard Hannay (Ian Stenlake). He is urbane, British, worldweary, and has a pencil moustache. He’s fed up with his pointless existence and confides that he thinks he ought to do something equally pointless. Of course, he decides to go to the theatre.
Cue the first of many foregroundings of the background as the Umbilical Brothers take the stage as the entertainment. These household names of slapstick comedy are genius casting: there’s Shane Dundas, the serious one and fine actor, and David Collins, who’s a bigger ham than the Empress of Blandings’s left hind leg.
Hannay is joined in the theatre by a Glamorous Spy (Lisa McCune). We know this because she has a Russian accent as salty as caviar and looks, well, spy-ish. She also, and quite quickly, ends up with a knife in her back. As this occurs in Hannay’s flat, he is naturally the suspect, and at the prompting of various unlikely clues, does a runner to Scotland on the night train.
It’s best not to worry too much about the plot, which takes a distant back seat to the fan-pleasing antics of the Umbilicals. When she has a chance – not as many as would be good – McCune reminds at every turn why she is so highly regarded. She’s as funny as a fit and alarmingly good at Highland dancing, and even manages to excel at being mere set decoration.
Stenlake is Pommy ennui personified in a debonair suit and trilby, but has an uphill battle as the serious chap in what is mainly barmy mayhem. That he maintains the earnestness of his moustache throughout is a tribute to his stiff upper lip. Even when endlessly swapping seats and apologies, climbing along the outside of speeding trains or bouncing about in the back of a car with whichever characters the Umbilicals are inhabiting in any given situation, he’s the epicentre of sanity.
On the way to Scotland and an eccentric hotel, then on the way back to London to save the world from the wicked 39 Steps, there is a lot of slapstick and clowning in routines that, at their heart, would be familiar to Umbilicals fans. There are moments of pure genius. There are also many more moments of seemingly endless repetition and self-indulgence in a show that runs two and a half hours, with an interval.
Composer and sound designer Brady Watkins works a lot of hilarious magic with sound effects and portentous music. Matthew Marshall’s lighting design illustrates how difficult it is to make the black and white palette work on stage, while director Damien Ryan must surely have wished for longer to get this under-rehearsed vehicle on the road to smooth and speedy, as opposed to rushed and somewhat bumpy.
If you love the Umbilical Brothers, you’ll be intrigued and happy with this showcase of their schtick. McCune fans might feel a bit aggrieved, even short-changed. Stenlake followers will be amazed at his grit and versatility. Either way, Hitchcock devotees need fear not for their classic film – this is something else entirely!
