In Saul Bass’s title sequence for Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 film North by Northwest, diagonal and vertical lines intersect to form a grid that eventually dissolves to the façade of a New York City office building. Bringing the classic spy caper to the stage for the first time, Melbourne Theatre Company uses that visual switch-up as the inspiration for a long series of objects that double as something else.

Grouped office chairs become a police car, a sofa plays a swerving Mercedes (complete with working headlights) and stacked tables fill in for a death-defying struggle across Mount Rushmore. More impressive still is a video screen showing inventive hand-sized models filmed against Hollywood-style ‘green screens’ from either side of the stage. So when that Mercedes goes careening around a mountain road at high speed, thanks to an intoxicated driver, an actor actually turns a small model of the mountain by hand to create the effect while we watch.