The 39 Steps at the New Vic theatre

A joyous and hilarious take on the loved spy story.

The 39 Steps at the New Vic theatre

‘The 39 Steps’ is a well known and well loved adventure and spy story, going through book, film, radio and stage. However, I had never seen or read this story so I was thrown into the play with a mind empty of the story.

This play had only 4 cast members, this meant that the characters had to be extravagant and melodramatic which was excecuted seamlessly. Throughout I would find myself forgetting about it as the difference in characters came across brilliantly. They even played around with the concept of having a cast of 4 by creating comedy with the change between characters.

With this theatre being in the round, the set had to be used perfectly, the floor was black with letters and numbers printed on it which were projected onto to show where in the play we were and even the set changes were enjoyable to watch, being so well choreographed. Costume changes on stage were either funny or done unnoticed by drawing the audiences attention to a different part of the stage.

So many moments in this show were chucklesome and others side splittingly funny, there was never a dull moment. Times where the actors would do a dance and times when jokes would make the audience erupt with laughter, every single joke landed. There were also times when the audience would be involved either simply gesturing towards the audience or when the audience were spoken to and used in the play everything came together to make a hilarious joyful atmosphere.

This performance was one of the best comedies I have ever seen, with giggles escaping throughout. A brilliant show with a fantastic cast and amazing workforce. Simply terrific!

Header Image Credit: Andrew Billington

Author

Sofia Bond

Sofia Bond local reviewer

A girl who loves theatre :)

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1 Comments

  • Ruth Watson

    On 30 June 2019, 17:39 Ruth Watson Local Reviewer commented:

    Good, concise review; it's easy to read and you get your points across well. Well done :)

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