Richard Hannay

Major-General Sir Richard Hannay, KCB, OBE, DSO, is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist John Buchan and further made popular by the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps (and other later film adaptations), very loosely based on Buchan's 1915 novel of the same name. In his autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, Buchan suggests that the character is based, in part, on Edmund Ironside, from Edinburgh, a spy during the Second Boer War. 2Novels 3By Buchan Hannay appears in several novels as a major character, including: The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) Greenmantle (1916) Mr Standfast (1919) The Three Hostages (1924) The Island of Sheep (1936)He also appears as a minor character in: The Courts of the Morning (1929) Sick Heart River (1940) 3By other authors The Thirty-One Kings (2017), by Robert J. Harris, purports to be the first volume of a new series called "Richard Hannay Returns' about Hannay's adventures during World War II. In Combined Forces (1985), a humorous novel by Jack Smithers, Hannay teams up with the similar heroes "Sapper"'s Bulldog Drummond and Dornford Yates' Jonah Mansel. Thirty-Nine Steps From Baker Street (J.R. Trtek, 978-1-51715-300-7) (2015) 2Radio, film, television and theatre Hannay has been portrayed in four film versions of The Thirty Nine Steps respectively, by actors Robert Donat (in the original and most famous film adaptation, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935), Kenneth More, Robert Powell and Rupert Penry-Jones (in a 2008 BBC production). Powell reprised the role for the ITV series Hannay (1988–1989). Orson Welles portrayed Hannay in a radio play of The Thirty-Nine Steps in 1938, as did Glenn Ford in 1948 on Studio One, Herbert Marshall on Suspense in 1952 and David Robb in the BBC Radio 4 adaptations of The Thirty-Nine Steps, Greenmantle, Mr Standfast and The Three Hostages.The 1973 BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero had Christopher Cazenove playing Hannay in a scene from Mr. Standfast, as well as a number of other such heroic characters, including Beau Geste, Bulldog Drummond and James Bond. Barry Foster played Hannay in a 1977 television adaptation of The Three Hostages. Playwright Patrick Barlow's comedic stage adaptation of the 1935 Hitchcock film opened in London's Tricycle Theatre, and after a successful run, transferred to the Criterion Theatre in Piccadilly. On 15 January 2008, the show made its US Broadway premiere at the American Airlines Theatre; it transferred to the Cort Theatre on 29 April 2008 and then moved to the Helen Hayes Theatre on 21 January 2009, where it ended its run on 10 January 201