Each week Young Post will cover part of the NSS curriculum, teaching English through different mediums. The 39 Steps is playing at the Lyric Theatre, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, from October 15 to 26.
Step 1: What is it?
The 39 Steps is a drama adapted from a popular novel written in 1915 and a famous movie made in 1935. The novel is an exciting adventure story, but lots of things in the original plot were changed when the film was made. The stage production is a funny spoof of both the book and the movie. It is also an exciting who-dun-it in which 150 characters are played on stage by only four actors. Any actor appearing in The 39 Steps has to work very hard.
Step 2: Who wrote it?
John Buchan, the author of The 39 Steps, was born in Scotland in 1875. He started to write stories when he was at university. Buchan had successful careers as a barrister and civil servant and ended up with the top job of governor-general of Canada. He published novels and stories mainly for his own entertainment, writing the very successful The 39 Steps during an illness in 1915. During the first world war (1914-18), Buchan worked on propaganda for the British government, and knew how important spying was during a war. He used spies as central characters in many of his novels. Buchan's hero, Richard Hannay, was an early James Bond.
Step 3: Who made the movie?
The stage play The 39 Steps uses the movie more than the novel for its script. When famous film director Alfred Hitchcock made the film in 1935, he changed a lot of the novel's plot. When John Buchan saw the finished film, he was very upset Hitchcock had changed so much of his story. But after seeing the film several times and realising how much audiences loved it, Buchan said Hitchcock's changes had made The 39 Steps more exciting.
