Review: North by Northwest (Bath Theatre Royal)
It is a moment etched in the mind of all cineastes. In it, a man wrongly accused of being a spy, Madison Avenue executive Roger O Thornhill (played in the movie by Cary Grant), is seen running through a field, a crop dusting plane in chase. Watching it on screen big or small, still feels, over 50 years later, an exhilarating reminder of what cinema at its peak can do. The stage version knows the iconic lore it is competing against and goes in for something equally as dazzling. We see the hero standing centre stage alone, the crop fields behind him. At the sides an actor manipulates a little model plane onto a camera that then projects this onto the backdrop. It is clever and provides a couple of chuckles but, perhaps inevitably, it does not cause the breath to catch indelibly imprinting the image into the brain.
Its a sequence that sums up Simon Phillips' smart and deliberately populist stage homage to Hitchcock. Another stage take on one of Hitch's films mined it for farce and played the West End for years in The 39 Steps. This is a different beast, a comedy thriller with its focus on the action. Like all classic adventure books from the '50s, its plot whisks us from one exotic location to another, introduces us to an icy blonde, includes fist fights and shoot outs and features enough good suits and splashes of scotch to satiate the appetite of anyone who misses Mad Men. It is refreshing to watch theatre that goes all in on telling a purely rollicking narrative adventure, and unquestionably its two hour and a bit stage time passes in a whirl of fun, but it also makes you compare mediums. The stage can't really compete with film in the stunning locations and thrilling action stakes.
Phillips knows this, which is why he tries to keep the tone light. Yet sometimes he ends up falling between two stools. The fights feel like they should be captioned by Adam West 'kapow' signs, so obviously pulled are the punches. Yet weirdly they seem to be played straight. As are the lines of dialogue; no arched eyebrows or 'ding-dong' moments here. Instead it is left to some invented and inventive Keystone cops to gain the first laughs. It also sets the night up for something that doesn't really materialise. It is much more of a straight homage than its original scene will have you believe.
Yet it's hard to be too critical. Phillips and co-designer Nick Schlieper immerse their audience into Hitchcock's world, played on a set featuring multiple bars which suggest a prison that ad man Thornhill has to break out from. It provides plenty of twisting fun and doesn't stop to draw breath until its villains have drawn their last. The ensemble provide a constant blur of energy, if little chance of character development, while Jonathan Watton as 'the wrong man' on the run and Olivia Fines as the cool, chic blonde knock back zingers like they would their scotch, while providing plenty of classy sex appeal.
If the night doesn't fully convince me that genre theatre can be as enticing as that on the screen there is still plenty here to enjoy. A success in its native Australia from where it has transferred, there is little doubt it should play well to a legion of film fans. A quantified thumbs up.
North by Northwest runs at Theatre Royal Bath until 12 August.
