North by Northwest: a 'delightfully playful' adaptation

Katy Owen and Ewan Wardrop in North by Northwest at York Theatre Royal

(Image credit: Steve Tanner)

published 3 April 2025

Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 classic "North by Northwest" "really ought to be unstageable", said Patrick Marmion in the Daily Mail. The film is about a slick Manhattan ad man who's mistaken for a spy, and pursued across America in a chase that features trains, planes and automobiles, and culminates on the summit of Mount Rushmore. But all this proves to be "just grist to the mill of director Emma Rice in her effortlessly chic new adaptation".

It shares some DNA with Patrick Barlow's stage version of Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps", said Ron Simpson on WhatsOnStage. There's the same "madcap switching of parts", clever use of props, and breaches of the fourth wall. "What it does not share is the comedy of incompetence." On the contrary, in Rice's show – which contains several song-and-dance numbers – one "finds oneself in awe at the slickness of timing between the actors", the sound and lighting design, and the "frequently glorious choreography".

The script sticks closely to the original, but the tone is "more Rice-esque than Hitchcockian", said Holly Williams in The Daily Telegraph. This is a bravura "spy caper with the emphasis on capering, rather than suspense or thrills", and which goes for "larky, knowing stagecraft and theatrical silliness" rather than big-budget special effects (the crop-dusting biplane is represented by banners and spray from an aerosol can). The "heroic cast of six play umpteen suitcase-swapping roles with wit and swagger" – Ewan Wardrop is reliably entertaining as Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant in the film) – and the production's sheer inventiveness will keep you grinning.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

It's all "delightfully playful" and entertaining, agreed Arifa Akbar in The Guardian – but "there is not quite enough charge underneath", and the serious themes of "global crisis, security and the toxic legacies of war are raised rather too late, like an afterthought".

The show also lacks the jeopardy and sense of confinement that Hitchcock "brought to even the flippest moments", said Dominic Maxwell in The Times. Still, it is for the most part a really good ride – and at its best it is "glorious".