The Stage

The Railway Children

Published Thursday 24 July 2008 at 14:50 by Kevin Berry

Here is a genuine theatrical event. E Nesbit’s classic story set in a purpose built station with a wonderful 1875 steam engine chugging down the track.

The audience sits, traverse fashion, on either platform, with railway furniture and architecture everywhere. Scenes are played along the platform, a footbridge and on flat, platform-height trolleys. The latter are pushed along the railway track by chaps dressed as rail workers.

Mike Kenny has adapted the story. He has given it excitement and imagination and kept it anchored in the real world. His wit has appealing irony and the twee barometer barely registers. These railway children are on a journey of self-discovery, particularly the elder girl Bobbie. “We lived an ordinary life,” says one. Oh come on. That’s not, as we hear, what the servants thought.

Sarah Quintrell’s playing of Bobbie is exemplary. The tension between Bobbie and her mum, played by Andrina Carroll, is sharp and heart-rending. Kenny and director Damian Cruden have made the relationships matter. The climactic scene, when father appears on the station platform, will have sturdy men crying, never mind moist-eyed.

Robert Angell as the father and the village doctor is admirable and influential. Marshall Lancaster as Perks is spot on. There is excellence from everyone in the cast and this production will surely prove a landmark in their careers.

It’s a pity to raise a concern, but the performance space is covered and goodness it’s hot in there, so the refreshment kiosk should not be running out of bottled water.