The Railway Children

Always a pleasure to see schools encouraging future generations of performing artists, both amateur and professional beginning to learn their trade and develop a passion for the stage and in this Castle Newnham School, under the guidance of their drama teacher, Luke Skeel, ably assisted by Sheridan Carlile are certainly one of the outstanding advocates.

This year’s production, my second visit to the school was a straight play of that well known classic, Edith Nesbit’s, The Railway Children and adapted for the stage by playwright Mike Kenny.  This was a joint production between the two school sites and encompassed the entire age range of the children now formed into the newly created 4SIXTEEN Theatre Company.

With a clever stage layout designed by Louise Haddon consisting of the two platforms of ‘Oakworth’ station with an ‘imaginary’ railway line between them it was played in the round, the audience being seated on three sides, behind the two platforms and on the normal stage at one end of the hall. Even the tickets to the performance were printed as platform numbers. Neat idea! All the signs for Oakworth Station, including ones strategically placed outside the hall together with the platform signs were in the authentic brown and, to people of my age, the familiar font of the period of British Railways and steam trains.  As we entered the hall the air was filled with a thin haze of smoke, which occasionally got a little too thick, and the sounds of steam trains letting off steam, transporting us back to the bygone age of Edwardian England.

A superb range of Edwardian costumes by Debbie Taylor added the finishing touch to the period atmosphere. I can see a lot of work went into their creation across the many ages and sizes that made up a pretty extensive and varied cast list.

Technically this play is a bit of challenge. Mike Kenny’s original production was performed in a ‘Pop-up’ theatre at The National Railway Museum in York and was able to use a real Steam Engine for the famous scene where the children flag down the train and avert a disaster. 4SIXTEEN solved the problem with a lot of smoke, clever lighting (CLX Lighting) and a very powerful hand-held spotlight traversed between the platforms, The collapsing of the tunnel being simulated with a lot of cardboard boxes falling off the raised 3 tier plinth. Simple but very effective!  Well done to the technical crew of Sam Tebbutt, Gemma James and Samuel Evans.

At the blowing of the station master’s whistle we were off and quickly introduced to the central characters, Bobbie (Christina Nakayama-Dodd), Peter (Bailey Potts), Phyllis (Claudia Russo) and Mother (Neve Taylor). These are all confident actors who carried the narrative with energy and conviction, creating a very believable family unit going through the roller-coaster of emotions as they adjust to the new impoverished circumstances after the arrest of their father and their enforced move away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Good job, well done to you all.

Santiago Parra-Whitehead as The Station Master Mr Perks, has a wonderful unique voice and a natural ‘cheeky chappie’ sense of comic timing. He instinctively knows how to deliver a line or two and is quite clearly a firm favourite with the audience. A lad with a bright future on the stage I would venture to suggest.

Alistair Porteous made the most of his small part as the father before being transposed into the lost Russia exile, Mr Szezcpansky behind a magnificent red beard and wig which can only be described as ‘Rasputin’ like. Brilliant!

Javai James gave us a very imposing and convincing Doctor whilst the rest of the cast: Sasha Alexis, Erin Askew-Hunt, Lia Borromeo, Millie Sussams, Alana Crooks, Lucy Bichener, Bisola Ayowanle, Amber Chantrelle, Eleanor Shakespeare, Marissa Edwards, Tegan Alexis and Emily Houghton all played their small parts with enthusiasm and commitment.

This was a very well thought out production, well-rehearsed, well executed and thoroughly enjoyed by the attendant sell out audience of mums, dads, siblings and grandparents etc. The script was wordy and has some complicated dialogue which everybody had learnt very well indeed. There were some lovely little touches, such as the crowd scenes on the platforms and the younger children doing their series of mini dances. However, if I might offer a small word of advice to the actors, which they will learn as they get older and more experienced. Pace is not about delivering lines as fast as possible, it’s about picking up cues quickly, which in the main they did very well, but a lot of the lines were delivered at such breakneck speed it made the story a little harder to follow in places. Once you have picked up the cue, just slow the delivery down a touch and vary the speed of that delivery according to the mood of the script.

So well done to Luke Skeel and 4SIXTEEN, for the opening play of your new theatre company it was pretty impressive and certainly very enjoyable. Always a pleasure to see your annual production and I look forward to reviewing ‘Singin’ In The Rain’ next year.

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