Styles

The 39 steps is a very slapstick comedy relying on big actions for the comedy, what makes "39 steps" very slapstick is because of the plot of the show as a definition of slapstick is clumsy actions and humorously embarrassing events which is shown the natural plot of Hannay trying to get to scotland in Act 1, we have used slapstick elements in all of our scenes for 39 steps as a lot of slapstick is written into the script like when Annabella dies and falls across Hannay stopping his movement, this is very slapstick as it is a clumsy action. the style of slapstick is all over the show as the main style of 39 steps is slapstick. Another style that is used a lot in 39 steps is multi rolling as the show is reliant on a four person cast so needs to use multi rolling. Multi rolling would be a key part of 39 steps as it is another form of the show's humour like in the train scene where the two clowns keep changing between the Salesmen, Porter, Mrs Higgins, Policeman and paper boy. This scene is made incredibly funny due to the chaotic and randomness of the changing characters, without this the scene becomes a lot more dull. A style 39 steps is very similar to how the english comedy group "Monty python" work in the sense of Monty python create humorous sketches for their audiences while 39 steps is performed very similar with each scene of 39 steps feeling like a sketch in a comedy show.
An idea our group had was adapting the style of "The play that goes wrong" as we had watch a scene from the play one lesson and really like how they performed the show so we had worked on adapting the style to 39 steps. We showed this style in like the scene where Annabella dies over Hannay, after Hannay gets out we leave her on the chair as we just move it to the side for the next scene and then back on after. Another part of how we adapted this was in our last scene of the Act between the professor and Hannay, for this scene we wanted to make it seem like to the audience we didn't know our lines so had another one of us behind the curtain reading out the lines behind the curtain every time one of us cofed the line was read out obviously to the audience before we'd then say it. We made this idea even more obvious by repeating lines already said before and us as actors acknowledging this and reacting to this. Another part we have kind of adapted from the play that goes wrong is just before Hannay gets shot, as the professor looks in all his pockets and then just points his hand at Hannay like a gun, we thought this was funny because it makes the professor look like he's forgot the gun and very childish as he's using his hand as a gun.