Radio review – BBC - “The 39 Steps” (2001) *** by John Buchan

The first in a series of radio adaptations by the BBC of Buchan’s Richard Hannay series with David Robb an excellent Hannay. This one also has Tom Baker as Sir Walter Bullivant – perhaps this is why the story is told in flashback by Hannay to Bullivant, to give Baker a bigger part. Or maybe it’s just because it works well. This one includes a Mr Memory scene at the beginning but that’s about it for things from the Hitchcock version, the rest of it is fairly Buchan (Memory isn’t paid off at the end either – maybe it was a kind of homage); however they have converted the inn keeper to a woman instead of a young man, and that works well. The adaptation doesn’t shy away from some of Buchan’s less pleasant features, such as Scudder’s anti-Semitism. Very good version.