The 39 Steps is a great romp of a play with a convoluted history. Start with John Buchan's original 1915 novel of spies and intrigue, then on to the film Alfred Hitchcock made of it in 1935. Patrick Barlow's version emerged in 2005 and went on to become a London West End hit.

State Theatre Company South Australia presents here a gentler version than is sometimes the case. A company of four, two of whom at least have clearly absorbed the principles of Michael Green's The Art of Coarse Acting, sets out, with apparently limited resources to do what is basically a lovely take on Hitchcock's film. Buchan's original novel of mysterious intrigue takes a back seat.

Nathan Page as Richard Hannay happily resists the temptation to play him as a lantern jawed two-dimensional hero. In fact this Hannay has moments of real introspection before the antics of a tribe of eccentrics take over. He's arrived in London but life seems boringly pointless until a visit to the theatre produces an encounter with the strange and Germanic Annabella Schmidt (Anna Steen). Hannay flees to Scotland via a splendidly realised train trip after being implicated in a murder. From the start it's clear that he is struggling with an absurdist world peopled by police who are after him and sardonic corset salesmen. A raft of strange characters emerges, deftly portrayed by Charles Mayer and Tim Overton.

Hannay encounters young Margaret (Steen), married to a fierce old Scottish religious bigot, yearning to go to the city. Steen does a particularly sweet and truthful take on this young woman, whose dancing feet betray her longings.

And as the obligatory Hitchcock blonde heroine Pamela, Steen is all no-nonsense as she is dragged into Hannay's story against her will, betraying him several times as she does not initially believe his innocence.

As the eccentrics who create the rest of the world of The 39 Steps, Mayer and Overton are excellent. National stereotyping, cross-dressing and Scottish accents abound. There are costume and set change difficulties, disastrous acting misjudgments (Scottish sheriffs are not from the Wild West), rubber fish and outbreaks of falling out of character. Yet they can rise to challenges, like creating a car from random objects on stage.

The set looks like The Green Shed. Designer Ailsa Paterson dreamed it up, with suitcases, ladders, odd doors, windows on wheels and a scrim that serves a bit of shadow puppetry, all framed by the proscenium arch of the London stage where the mysterious Mr Memory sets the story in motion.

It's a wonderful world of blundering cops and mysterious spies and evil masterminds, with Page's bemused Hannay at its centre.

This production succeeds in giving the slapstick a heart. Well worth a pre-Christmas outing.