The 39 Steps at Ealing's Questors Theatre

Catch this adventure spy comedy before it ends - last night Saturday

Take four incredibly versatile actors, a technical crew second to none, an imaginative and talented director and voila, you've got another hugely successful show at Ealing's own Questors Theatre.

'The 39 Steps' is often most thought of as one of Alfred Hitchcock's film classics, and it's his black and white version that generally springs to mind. This however is the theatre production written by Patrick Barlow and one of the longest running plays to ever be perfomed in the West End.

It's basically a spy drama/comedy and a parody of the 1935 film and John Buchan's book which follows our hero Richard Hannay's epic and eventful journey as he tries to stop a powerful spy ring.

Richard Graylin, totally inhabits the Hannay character and is pretty much on stage throughout meanwhile Claire Durrant, Freddy Sledge and Nicholas Thomas play a multitude of other roles each incredibly well with a great sense of drama, timing and wonderfully fluid movement

It's a complex technical stage show with many scene and costume changes, so special mentions must be made to the set/lighting sound designers and operators, the stage managers and indeed all the people 'behind the scenes' who make the magic happen.

Director Simon Rudkin managed to juggle a huge number of challenges and successfully transformed the Questors stage to make the opening night audience feel as though it were a West End show.

Overall it was a great success with much laughter throughout and rapturous applause at the end. Many members of the audience could be heard commenting how very professional it was.

I'm never disappointed with Questors productions a huge amount of work has gone into this one by the team and so plaudits must be handed to all -  another Ealing success.

Well done Questors!

You've still got time to see it it's playing until Saturday book now!

Annemarie Flanagan

March 27th 2019