Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest

Theatre Royal Bath

- by Gerry Parker

YOU have to have a vivid imagination, tremendous theatrical skills, and courage to even consider turning Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic spy thriller North By Northwest into a stage show.

Having all those attributes, Wise Children’s artistic director Emma Rice set about adapting Ernest Lehman's screenplay which includes a crop-dusting aeroplane chasing the hero though a corn field and a death-defying fight over the faces of the four American Presidents carved into Mount Rushmore.

With set and costume designer Rob Howell showing as much imagination as Rice, the main feature of the ever-changing sets are four tall revolving doors, and a top class team of lighting, sound and staging teams, means very little of the story as seen in the Hitchcock film is missing.