The 39 Steps
★★★★☆ Spiffing
The Royal Scots Club (Venue 241): Mon 11 – Sat 16 Aug 2025
Review by Hugh Simpson
Arkle’s The 39 Steps, at the Royal Scots Club for the Fringe’s second week, is a glorious piece of tongue-in-cheek entertainment.
Patrick Barlow’s celebrated 2005 adaptation draws clearly on Alfred Hitchcock’s film rather than John Buchan’s original novel – Forth Bridge, Mr Memory and all. It is an affectionate parody of the source, featuring frantic doubling and ludicrously expansive theatricality. Foreign agents, mysterious strangers and simple country folk abound in a tale of daring and derring-do.
Hannah Bradley Croall, Steven Bradley Croall, Adrian Moore and Laurence Wareing in Arkle’s The 39 Steps. Pic: Rob Shields.
Steven Bradley Croall’s stiff-upper-lip Richard Hannay is wonderfully knowing, with his pipe and pencil moustache, excellent timing and a suitably bewildered yet heroic (and ‘surprisingly handsome’ air).
Hannah Bradley Croall, meanwhile, plays the three various women with whom he is entangled with just the right mixture of reserve and passion.
boundless energ
Laurence Wareing and Adrian Moore play all of the many other roles, often more than one in the same scene, with boundless energy and comic knowhow. There is a tremendous sense of co-operation between the ensemble.
Steven Bradley Croall, Laurence Wareing, Adrian Moore, Peter Lally and Hannah Bradley Croall in Arkle’s The 39 Steps. Pic: Rob Shields.
There is an infectious glee to the homespun (and often deliberately inadequate) staging, with the sudden appearance of a light switch or the depiction of a car or plane cause for extreme merriment.
Rob McKean’s direction is inventive and sets up a pace that never flags. It is rare to see a 90-minute production that has no moments where you wish there was an interval, but this fairly flies by.
always fun
The references to other Hitchcock films and other cultural touchstones (some glaringly obvious, others subtle) are not as numerous as in some productions of the play, but are always fun.
Hannah Bradley Croall with Laurence Wareing and Adrian Moore in Arkle’s The 39 Steps. Pic: Rob Shields.
The lighting of Rob Shields and John Weitzen, and Craig Robertson’s sound, are impeccable.
If a criticism can be levelled at the production, it is that it perhaps does not go far enough. There really is no such thing as ‘too big’ as far as this play is concerned, and some of the ridiculous effects, intentional hamminess and deliberate mistakes could be sold even more.
However, there is already enough fun and spectacle on stage to be going on with, in a production that is tremendous fun.
Running time: One hour and 30 minutes (no interval).
The Royal Scots Club (Hepburn Suite), 29-31 Abercromby Place, EH3 6QE. (Venue 241).
Monday 11 – Saturday 16 August 2025.
Daily: 6.15pm.
Tickets and details: Book here on EdFringe.com.
Arkle website: arkle-theatre.com/
Facebook: @ArkleTheatreCompany
Hannah Bradley Croall and Steven Bradley Croall in Arkle’s The 39 Steps. Pic: Rob Shields.
ENDS
