“Let’s all set ourselves resolutely to make this world a happier place!
A decent world! A good world! A world where no nation plots against nation! Where no neighbour plots against neighbour, where there’s no persecution or hunting down, where everybody gets a square deal and a sporting chance and where people try to help and not to hinder! A world where suspicion and cruelty and fear have been forever banished! Is that the sort of world that you want? Because that’s the sort of world I want.”
Richard Hannay
Richard Hannay – Darren Barsby
Annabella, Pamela, and Margaret – Georgina Bennett
The Clowns – Julia Arundale, Harry Janes, Jo Manser, Paul Morton, Gavin Palmer, Paul Russell
The Molvenny Duo – Pete Dawson, Calypso Powel
Director – Jan Palmer Sayer, Chris Janes
Musical Director – Pete Dawson
Choreographer – Louise Davis
Stage Director – Derek Palmer
Lighting Design – Ken Allford
Costumes – Hannah Leonard, Shelagh Maughan
Set Design & Construction – Steve Onyon
Sound Design – Andy Lee
The cast of the Shattered Windscreen Theatre Company took big creative steps to bring a spiffing spy thriller to the Minack, giving their set designers, technicians and backstage team a non-stop run-around to keep up with the fast-paced drama.
John Buchan’s and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic book and film of The 39 Steps, adapted for the stage by Patrick Barlow from an original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, is a loaded gun of derring-do with a hero called Hannay.
The book was published just before the First World War and became a favourite escapist adventure for British troops on the fields of Flanders – notably, few first editions survived those bloody battles.
Hitchcock made it more famous with his thirties film starring Robert Donat, and there have been many versions since then, with Robert Powell playing Hannay in 1978, in a film considered to be the closest to Buchan’s original concept – and a Netflix adaptation on the way.
The Hertfordshire based theatre company has been appearing at the Minack for 20 years, and comes with an excellent pedigree, recently winning the trophy for best production of the summer season with a very moving, heart-breaking interpretation of Steinbeck’s, The Grapes of Wrath.
The contrast between the two productions could not have been greater. This was deliberately silly-spectacular, with dastardly spies pursued by slow policemen, and a monster Nessie surfacing from a loch, to pulsating Jaws music, when the chase from London arrives in the Scottish Highlands.
The drama directed by Jan Palmer Sayer with Chris Janes, featured a hardworking, role switching cast of 10, with Darren Barsby as the plucky Hannay, the ever-sophisticated Georgina Bennett as his three gorgeous girl ‘friends’, Julia Arundale, Harry Janes, Jo Manser, Paul Morton, Gavin Palmer, Pete Dawson and Calypso Powell – with Paul Russell splendidly conjuring-up a memorable performance as Mr Memory.
The musical backdrop is in a class of its own, and adds to the fun, with screaming string snatches from the Psycho shower scene, Jerusalem, and Sunday Night At The London Palladium, in the hands of musical director Pete Dawson, who both acts and plays cello on stage alongside guitarist Calypso.
Interestingly, Buchan used his own London address, Portland Place, where we find Hannay at home, and in a sticky situation, as in the moment when he awakes to find a femme fatale lying across his lap – with a knife sticking out of her back!
Visually it is spectacular, with a gauzy bi-plane, with roundels on its wings being unravelled out of nothing, and the ‘Flying Scotsman’ appearing out of a cloud of steam, and a car with lit headlights being unpacked from a large suitcase on stage.
It was all action, but stage director Derek Palmer and stage manager Brenda Onyon working with technical team Andy Pierce, Maddie Lee and Dawn Meadowcroft, with Andy Lee on sound, and Ken Allford in charge of lighting, were right on cue.
The ingenious set was designed and constructed by Steve Onyon, and the effects were enhanced by the costumes of Hannah Leonard and Shelagh Maughan, with choreography by Louise Davis – as always, the whole team was very much in step to present a fine show.
