Skip to main content

Review of The Railway Children at Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton

This touring production of the very classic E. Nesbit tale The Railway Children adapted by Dave Simpson and directed by Paul Jepson delivers perhaps everything that someone familiar with the original tale would desire.

Yes, in this modern age we are treated to the more flashy projection images which while a little unexciting at times (and occasionally diluted in clarity by the other stage lights) provide a pleasing background nonetheless.

This production of The Railway Children though is still very much of its time, nothing exciting really happens, other than some petticots being removed infront of a train, that we of course know is going to stop, even if we don't know the story. It's all very safe, and perhaps that is why it appears the modern audience has less interest in it judging by the shockingly small audience on opening night.

However, those not there are missing out on just a really lovely piece of gentle theatre, that while not without its faults, holds the interest of the audience throughout and leaves you just generally really happy, which is a much-needed thing in this day and age.

At its heart, of course, are the Waterbury's, a family down on its luck and with a father mysteriously away from home. Played with excellent spirit by Millie Turner (Roberta), Vinay Lad (Peter) and Katherine Carlton (Phyllis), the three children are as captivating as ever. As is the tradition with The Railway Children on stage, all the actors are of course well beyond the age they are portraying, however often you would never guess so with both youthful appearance and exuberance, the actors become kids again. All are wonderful, ho, ever my favourite of the three had to be Carlton's Phyllis, all sour-faced brilliance and truly exuding the characters grumps at generally the whole world.

Stewart Wright holds the whole piece together in an excellent way as Perks, acting as station guard
and narrator at the same time, and wields a neat way in scene changing by altering the points. As his son John, Callum Goulden is equally as childish as the Waterbury children, devilish in his antics and full of michievious fun.

The set looks lovely and in keeping with the whole atmosphere, however, there was, unfortunately, a really clumsy station platform post which simply refused to stop swinging the entire evening whenever it was visible, and sadly both irritated and distracted me more than I would have liked. Hopefully, that can be fixed promptly.

Some lovely touches of humour are put into the production with the comically tired doctor clearly stressed from making one too many trips to The Three Chimneys, via the constantly occupied sick bed. There is a lovely snippet of comedy from the gift of the pram for Mr. Perks, nicely timed, while the scenes involving both the distant train whizzing by in the background and the carriage with the passengers, including the Old Gentleman are naive in the extreme, but actually quite cute and totally in keeping with the story. Personally, I could have done without the overly dramatic music heralding the classic "Daddy, my daddy" moment, a line that is so iconic, no one wants to have it drowned out by such loud music.

The Railway Children was never going to be groundbreaking theatre, it simply didn't need to be, and while it definitely would have looked much better in the setting of the Royal, this is a classic and engaging tale that has been given a nice revival for a new generation and is unquestionably deserving of a larger audience.

A charming little production that never comes off the rails.
⭐⭐⭐½


Performance reviewed: Tuesday 19th September 2017 at the Royal & Derngate (Derngate), Northampton.
The Railway Children runs at the Royal & Derngate until Sunday 24th September 2017 before continuing its tour.until November.

For further details visit the Royal & Derngate website at http://www.royalandderngate.co.uk/


Photos: Mark Dawson

Popular posts from this blog

Review of Hacktivists by Ben Ockrent performed by R&D Youth Theatre at Royal & Derngate (Underground), Northampton

The National Theatres Connections series of plays had been one of my highlights of my trips to R&D during 2014. Their short and snappy single act style kept them all interesting and never overstaying their welcome. So I was more than ready for my first encounter with one of this years Connections plays ahead of the main week of performances at R&D later in the year. Hacktivists is written by Ben Ockrent, whose slightly wacky but socially relevant play Breeders I had seen at St James Theatre last year. Hacktivists is less surreal, but does have a fair selection of what some people would call odd. Myself of the other hand would very much be home with them. So we are presented with thirteen nerdy "friends" who meet to hack, very much in what is termed the white hat variety. This being for good, as we join them they appear to have done very little more than hacked and created some LED light device. Crashing in to spoil the party however comes Beth (Emma-Ann Cranston)...

Review of It's A Wonderful Life by Masque Theatre at the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton

Remarkably I only saw the classic film It's A Wonderful Life last Christmas, this was thanks to spotting it lurking on my subscription of Netflix. A glorious heartwarming film perfect for Christmas? That must be why I was a blubbering mess at the end of it then. There was hope that in public, The Masque Theatre's performance of the radio version of the story didn't leave me in the same situation. As it happened it did a little as that final scene in the Bailey household played out again, but it didn't matter as there were members of the cast in the same broken state as many of us audience members. Left to right: Jo Molyneux, John Myhill, Lisa Wright, Michael Street, Lisa Shepherd and Jof Davies This was the first radio play that I had seen performed and on the evidence of this, I sure would like to see some more. While not having the drama of standard plays in their creation of moment and places, they do have a rather striking drive towards character creation. The ...

Review of The Rocky Horror Show at Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes

Seeing the 46-year-old Rocky Horror Show at the theatre for the first time is quite an experience on many levels. First and foremost as a regular theatregoer, the audience, even on a relatively demure evening of a Monday, is something you would never really experience at a theatre beyond this show. Many are dressed up (even on that demure Monday), and so many are so in tune with the show, that these regular fans have become entwined within it. They know every word of the script, they contribute to it, they enhance it, often they make Richard O'Brien's already adult content into something much more adult. It's a revelation of experience, much before a newbie such as myself even considers the show. Laura Harrison's beautifully clear rendition of Science Fiction/Double Feature sets the scene for some generally excellent performances of O'Brien's classic tunes, in a musical which is clearly audible, sadly not something that always happens with many productio...