Peter Symonds College students to stage Hitchcock classic 39 Steps

The cast is made up of twelve 16-18 year olds from the college, who have partaken in the tough audition process to be in the comedy show.

The production is a parody of the 1935 Hitchcock ’39 Steps’ film, produced, directed, and acted solely by Peter Symonds students.

Peter Symonds holds more than 4,000 students, but four lucky students were chosen as the leading directors for this year’s production. Students Luke Bartlett, Emma Gibbon, Rachel Berkley have been working alongside Nate Barker, the leading student director.

Nate said: “It’s a big role but we’ve split it between the directors to manage it better. This is my first time directing a show, but I did act in last year’s production. A challenging aspect was adapting the roles from the original play into what we thought was best. A lot of the actors have been very good with learning lines and not quabbling with directors.”

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Another student director Rachel Berkley says she hopes that the directing role at college will help her with her future career. The eighteen-year old said: “It’s quite eye-opening with how much work you have to do. We love seeing the connections between students though. I have aspirations of being a screen-writer, so this is great experience for that.”

The four sixth-form students had to host the audition process for the show, and with guidance from the drama department at Peter Symonds, have carefully directed individual parts of the production between them. They will be handing out leaflets to advertise the show in Winchester High Street over the next week.

The show will be taking place on December 11, 12 and 13 in the Varley Theatre in Winchester.