This spoof on John Buchan’s 1915 novel and Hitchcock’s 1935 film The 39 Steps started life as a four-person show that was having great success in pubs and small theatres in England. It is still a four-person show but has been adapted by British writer and actor Patrick Barlow as a major theatre production. His The 39 Steps made the West End of London after a stint in Yorkshire, won the 2007 Olivier Award for best new comedy and is now travelling the world.
The original concept by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon draws its material mainly from the book, but Barlow has based his version on the Hitchcock film, which is much more familiar to most people and contains some of the crucial dramatic incidents as well as a fair amount of comedy. Much of the screenplay and the film’s humour has been transferred into the play, so that the theatrical version is not a satire of the original, but an extension of it, mining the comic element.