By Michael McLaughlin

Hey Everyone, am involved in another stage production and if you’d like a good laugh, come and check me out live on-stage at the Prospect Playhouse in the hilarious comedy “The 39 Steps”.  Adapted from a spy-thriller novel and a famous Alfred Hitchcock movie, “The 39 Steps” was re-written as a smash-hit comedy running in London’s West End and on Broadway.

The story takes Richard Hannay, somewhat bored with life, on an unexpected and wild adventure across England and Scotland on the trail of secret agents, while running from the police and encountering a series of intriguing women.  The show includes dozens of characters, all portrayed by a cast of only 4 people – Malcolm Ellis, Michelle Morgan, Martin Tedd and Mike McLaughlin.

For more information, check out the Cayman Drama Society’s website here: http://www.caymandrama.org.ky/

There will be only 9 performances, starting next week Thursday July 18 and running Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights for three weekends.

Tickets are available by calling 938-1998 between 9 AM and 5 PM or emailing [email protected].

Don’t miss it! And remember to share with others so as many as possible get to enjoy the show.

From Wikipedia

The 39 Steps is a melodrama adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The original concept and production of a four-actor version of the story was by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon. Patrick Barlow rewrote this adaptation in 2005.

The play’s concept calls for the entirety of the 1935 adventure film The 39 Steps to be performed with a cast of only four. One actor plays the hero, Richard Hannay, an actress (or sometimes actor) plays the three women with whom he has romantic entanglements, and two other actors play every other character in the show: heroes, villains, men, women, children and even the occasional inanimate object. This often requires lightning fast quick-changes and occasionally for them to play multiple characters at once. Thus the film’s serious spy story is played mainly for laughs, and the script is full of allusions to (and puns on the titles of) other Alfred Hitchcock films, including Strangers on a Train, Rear Window, Psycho, Vertigo and North by Northwest.

The play shares the plot and characters with the film. However, the play is a more comic treatment of the story, in the style of Monty Python and Barlow’s own National Theatre of Brent compared to the original and more serious film. The play incorporates references and use of music excerpts from other Hitchcock films. The cast of four actors portrays between 100 and 150 roles, including actors doubling parts within the same scene.[1][5][8] The quick, comic changes are reminiscent of Charles Ludlam’s The Mystery of Irma Vep. The part of Richard Hannay is the only one where the actor does not double in another role in the play.