By Mr Paul Eastway, Head of Drama

This year’s Senior Play is the hilarious comedy, The 39 Steps. In conjunction with SCEGGS Darlinghurst, our talented Year 11 students bring Patrick Barlow’s fast-paced, comedic romp to life in what promises to be a fun night in the theatre for all ages. 

The play is an adaptation of the John Buchan’s spy novel of the same name and leans delightfully into the classic films of Alfred Hitchcock. When John Buchan wrote the novel for his own amusement over 100 years ago, he would have had very little idea of the gift he was giving to the world. In 1935 when Alfred Hitchcock adapted it for the cinema, it spawned an entire genre of spy thrillers that still fill movie theatres today. Indeed, so ubiquitous have these stories become that for the last 30 years, parodies of the spy genre have almost become a genre in themselves. And that is certainly where Patrick Barlow’s adaptation for the stage sits; a ridiculous and chaotic romp set against the backdrop of the murky world of espionage. 

Buchan wrote the novel as a warning that evil comes in very attractive forms, and this idea still lies at the heart of the stage play. However, Patrick Barlow has used the story mostly as a vehicle for celebrating theatre and its most precious and essential quality: its reliance on the audience’s imagination above all else. This is theatre’s greatest strength and will remain its greatest ally as it competes with cinema, television and online content. Theatre is not passive consumption where all the work has been done for you. In the theatre, the audience is an active part of the creative process. 

And so we invite you to come along and enjoy your role in our production of The 39 Steps – a thrilling chase from one end of the United Kingdom to the other, by land, by sea and by air, all done on a small stage with a group of talented actors, a handful of props and the power of your imagination. 

When: 13–16 November 

Where: Duckmanton Drama Theatre, Stanmore campus 

Time: 7.00pm