As the Playhouse gears up to present its own production of a Broadway hit, Laura Davis meets the stars of The 39 Steps

THERE’LL be victory rolls, tweed suits and traditional BBC accents galore at the Playhouse next month as the Liverpool theatre puts on its own production of the smash hit show The 39 Steps.

Patrick Barlow has “recreated” Hitchcock’s classic spy thriller into a mad-cap play starring just four actors playing 139 roles in 100 minutes.

It has played to critical acclaim and sell-out audiences in the West End and on Broadway, winning two Tony Awards and a Olivier Award Winner for Best New Comedy.

Buttoned into his tweed suit for a photo call at the Adelphi Hotel, Dugald Bruce-Lockhart (Richard Hannay) is already feeling a touch of derring do creeping into his personality.

“I’ve got to grow my moustache yet,” he says excitedly. “I look forward to that, my pencil moustache.”

The actor has recently finished a play set during the Second World War so feels he’s in “a 1939-45 time warp”.

But he feels quite comfortable there, he reveals, given his own background.

“I have a big soft spot for Hannay,” he says.

“My father was in the foreign office and I was born overseas and spent a lot of time in Africa actually, so I like to think there are a lot of parallels in terms of my upbringing.

“When I was younger I was never that interested in history, it felt like an academic subject that you try to avoid at school. But now I love it, especially British history.”

Scottish author John Buchan penned The 39 Steps while in bed ill with a duodenal ulcer. Both stayed with him for the rest of his life – his stomach problems never cleared up and his novel, published in 1915, became his most famous despite his prolific output.

This is largely due to Hitchcock’s 1935 film of the book, updated to a Britain on the brink of war, followed by numerous other versions, including last year’s BBC TV adaptation starring Rupert Penry-Jones.

While the characters may be all stiff upper lip, the play does not stick to tradition.

For a start, it’s a comedy, and as well as playing more than 100 roles between them the actors are responsible for helping the audience imagine most of the settings.

“The very physical acting approach is something I enjoy,” says the 41-year-old.

“It’s theatre at its purest and best. It’s story-telling using everything you can on stage.

“Then the audience’s imagination unlocks and you believe that a shower curtain is a waterfall and you can hold up a window and climb through it.

“It’s what we instinctively do as children when we dress up and be cowboys and Indians using the garden as the desert and hoses for guns.”

He has wanted to play Hannay, the mustachioed hero drawn into a world of espionage, dastardly murders and chases across the Scottish countryside, for a while, he adds.

“Now that I get a chance to do it, it’s what else one can bring,” says Bruce-Lockhart, who has performed at the Playhouse before with all-male theatre company Propeller and was in Brookside from 1999-2000 as Mark Wilcox.

“It’s all about how the actors and characters relate on stage and bringing your own imagination to it.”

During his adventures, Hannay is swept off his feet by the beautiful Pamela, played in this production by Katherine Kingsley who also has two other roles in the play.

“Initially that’s quite daunting for an actress but actually it’s brilliant fun,” says the 28-year-old.

“I relish it because you change your voice, your accent, the colour of your hair, your costume.

“You often get stereotyped as an actress so it’s lovely to get away from that.”

The show includes every single scene from Hitchcock’s film, including the chase on the Flying Scotsman, the escape on the Forth Bridge, the first theatrical bi-plane crash ever staged and the sensational death-defying finale in the London Palladium.

“It’s an absolutely brilliant adaptation,” says Kingsley. “Nothing goes to waste.

“It’s so full of energy and pace and humour and it’s got something for everybody in it.”

THE 39 Steps is at the Liverpool Playhouse from December 3 to January 16.