Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest at York Theatre Royal and on tour – review

“How do they propose,” was my question on the way to the theatre, “to bring a crop-dusting aeroplane into York Theatre Royal? Or Mount Rushmore for that matter?” The answers were three people with banners while Roger Thornhill raced up and down (surprisingly tense and dramatic) and a pile of suitcases plus a dinky little model (effective enough, but rather less successful).

In her production for Wise Children, Emma Rice, with six actors skilled in physical theatre, takes on Hitchcock’s North by Northwest by re-creating it in a different medium: the world, essentially, of song and dance. At the outset, Rob Howell’s set indicates the style of the production: a row of dozens of hanging suits at the back suggests the constant identity shifts of the actors; suitcases lined up below them will be used for everything from identifying a character’s part to registering the locale; four mobile wooden frames, stuffed with drink, lie waiting to be transformed into hotel doors, trains, etc. The staging is an undoubted triumph.

Just like another Hitchcock thriller, The 39 Steps, the plot deals with a completely innocent man on the run from foreign spies and the police/FBI. And playgoers will recall a funny and much-revived version of The 39 Steps. This shares the madcap switching of parts and the occasional breach of the fourth wall in confiding with the audience. What it does not share is the comedy of incompetence. Indeed one finds oneself in awe at the slickness of timing between the actors and Simon Baker’s sound design and Malcolm Rippeth’s lighting – not to mention the frequently glorious choreography by Etta Murfitt.

At the beginning, the cast appear as gangster figures moving stealthily to a soundtrack and many of the more hysterical moments result from miming and moving to songs of the period. However, the major change comes with the character of The Professor, the chief of the good guys, whoever they are. In this case, he is also the narrator, sardonic and bullying in his treatment of the audience whose attention he doubts, making the most of Rice’s clever script – a tour de force from Katy Owen.

Unfortunately, the Professor’s wake-up-at-the-back doubts about audience memory prove justified, at least in the case of your reviewer who found difficulty in working out who was gunning for whom at one stage of the second half – blame Hitchcock who at least had one actor-per-part and some fabulous scenery to aid him.

Ewan Wardrop’s Roger Thornhill manages to combine the easy charm and plain-man perplexity of a Cary Grant with some impressive dancing and the four remaining actors crop up constantly in one guise or another, moving well and swapping hats as they please. Karl Queensborough is a cool, self-contained Vandamm and a gloriously eccentric Mrs Thornhill and Patrycja Kujawka retains all the ambiguity of Eve Kendall. The characters of Anna and Valerian are somewhat sketchily drawn, but Mirabelle Gremaud and Simon Oskarsson work wonders in the ensemble.

I sometimes wonder why Rice’s productions leave me with a nagging doubt: maybe because she doesn’t know when to stop.