Vaudeville was a popular form of entertainment in the United States and Canada from the late 19th century until the early 1930s.

The show’s inventive staging includes shadow puppets and clever use of sound effects to create the illusion of car chases, airplane crashes, and other action-packed moments. The play is famous for its fast-paced action and slapstick humor, with the actors switching between multiple characters at a rapid pace. Along the way, he is pursued by both the police and the spies and must use all his cunning and wit to evade capture. However, when she is murdered in Hannay’s flat, he becomes the prime suspect and must go on the run to clear his name.Īs Hannay tries to unravel the conspiracy, he encounters a series of eccentric characters, including a crofter’s wife, a saleswoman, and a Scottish police officer. Later that night, she reveals that she is a spy and has uncovered a plot to steal important military secrets. His evening takes an unexpected turn when he meets a mysterious woman who asks to accompany him back to his flat. Set in 1930s England, the play begins with Hannay attending a dull evening at the theater. The play follows the story of Richard Hannay, a man who finds himself caught up in a dangerous and exciting adventure. The Thirty-Nine Steps will be the first book in our Thrillers and Espionage rights collection.The 39 Steps is a stage play adapted by Patrick Barlow from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film of the same name. When a murder is committed in his flat, just days after a chance encounter with an American who had told him about an assassination plot which could have dire international consequences, Richard Hanny has no choice but to go on the run.Īn obvious suspect for the police and an easy target for the killers, he heads to his native Scotland to stay one step ahead of his pursuers, while figuring out them meaning of the cryptic reference to thirty-nine steps. It is the first of the five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a miraculous knack for getting himself out of tricky situations. It first appeared as a serial in Blackwood’s Magazine in August and September 1915 before being published in book form in October that year by William Blackwood and Sons. Written by the Scottish author John Buchan it is one of the earliest examples of the “man-on-the-run” archetype that subsequently became so readily adopted.

The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of the great spy thrillers of the twentieth century. John Buchan (1915), The Thirty-Nine Steps “I was not a murderer, but I had become an unholy liar, a shameless impostor, and a highwayman with a marked taste for expensive motor-cars.”

The 39 steps john buchan