North by Northwest | Home Manchester

Emma Rice and Wise Children’s latest offering, an adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, is gloriously fun, smooth, camp, and stylish. We follow Roger Thornhill, an unsuspecting citizen with a job in advertising, as he becomes caught up in a world of espionage and deception. He is mistaken for a secret agent in a moment that snowballs into a grand, dramatic chase as Roger attempts to find the illusive spy he has been taken for.

The best word to describe this production, I think, is sumptuous; from the rich, vintage set, to the row of crisp suits hanging up at the back of the stage, to the irresistible groove of the music, everything is stylish, richly designed, and deliciously noir. Set and costume designer Rob Howell is partly responsible. Howell’s costumes emulate the classic spy look: trench coats, fedoras, and glasses. These costumes perfectly suit the performers as they move in time with the thrumming music, hands extending from beige coat sleeves to click in time with the beat. The props, too, contribute to this overall aesthetic; the briefcases, for instance, are labelled with place settings and minor character titles, making sure the audience remain grounded amongst the quick location and character changes.

Howell’s set also contributes to the richness of the aesthetic. Tall, revolving doors move around the space, catapulting the characters into the scene or becoming static frames in the place of walls, train carriages, or bars lined with colourful glass bottles. Through these revolving doors, the actors can move smoothly around the space, leaving the stage as one character and then circling back as another. These cycles - the smooth but vivacious movements of the casts’ multi-roling - reflect Roger’s own arc as he moves, lost and confused, from place to place.

The smoothness of this multi-roling is, of course, due to the talents of the small (but perfectly formed) cast. Patrycja Kujawska’s Eve (an important player in both Roger’s personal story, and the wider story of surveillance and security) feels very much like the heart of the piece, Kujawska managing to be both empathetic and believable in the midst of so much deception. Mirabelle Gremaud and Simon Oskarsson are excellent, too, especially in the elegant flexibility of their movements, and Karl Queensborough’s Philip Vandamn is perfectly sinister as a foil to Ewan Wardrop’s truly hapless hero. Wardrop’s performance leans into the pastiche of it all; there is a self-awareness to the silliness.

Finally, Katy Owen is The Professor - the frontman of the storytelling - and in Wise Children’s Blue Beard, too, Owen took on a similar character, proving a proficiency in acting a consistent, high-energy role. In North by Northwest, Owen has quite a hefty responsibility as a narrator, to maintain the continuation of the story and encourage the audience’s engagement, all while performing with the same comedic flair throughout. This play is - as Rice’s work tends to be - a piece that relies on the strength of its ensemble cast. And they are superb— elegant, funny, committed, and clever.

Etta Murfitt choreographed the satisfying, stylish movements of these performers. These lively, exaggerated movements work as both visually entertaining set pieces, and as comedic touches in transitions between scenes. And the music behind these movements was perfectly satisfying, too, thanks to composer and sound designer Simon Baker: there was a bubbling, classic, jazz-style instrumental, alongside a peppering of songs for the performers to dramatically lip sync to. 

Emma Rice has already proven herself to be an expert at adaptation (as with Blue Beard, for instance): taking a pre-existing story and expanding it, making it fit a new shape with a new vision, tone, and effect. North by Northwest is everything that an adaptation should be: ingenious and new, while still paying homage to the original. The way Rice’s version uses the theatrical form makes for a vibrant and rich retelling: for example, as the film’s cuts are adapted to fit the play, the labelled briefcases giving Rice an outlet to luxuriate in the chaos; or, the handling of the classic plane chase; or, the amateurish-yet-genius recreation of a camera’s close-up shot, used when a character is looking at a prop too small for the entire audience to see (for the latter two, I won’t spoil the magic by explaining further). Rice has taken this story and adapted it in such a uniquely satisfying way, making it even more fast-paced, moreish, camp, and saturated with comedy.

North by Northwest is playing at Home, Manchester, until 10th May, before continuing its UK tour.

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★★★★★ (5*)

Gifted tickets in return for an honest review | Photography by Steve Tanner