Review: The Railway Children, Outdoor Theatre, Nottingham Castle

Chapterhouse Theatre Company’s stage adaptation of The Railway Children arrived at Nottingham Castle full of magical charm.

E Nesbit wrote some of the greatest children’s fiction leaving a legacy of some 40 children’s books, which have remained some of the most treasured works in English Literature including Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet and of course The Railway Children.

The theme is actually based around an innocent man being falsely imprisoned for espionage and originally serialised in The London Magazine during 1905, which probably explains why the story happens in sharp bursts. We begin with an idyllic image of a perfectly well-mannered middle class Edwardian family living in London. Following the arrest of their Father, and with Nesbit almost immediately destroying the protected, sheltered image of the family, they lose their home and are uprooted to live in poverty in Yorkshire. We then have episodes of drama, what with the coal theft, the discovery of the Russian revolutionary, the landslide, Jim with his leg caught on the track and finally the release of the Father, wrongly imprisoned for selling state secrets. The story itself having lost a little pace in today’s fast-moving modern society.

I was intrigued to see how a touring company would replicate the drama of steam engine rolling into the Castle grounds. Answer – drums and imagination, and it is this use of imagination which kept the audience young and old captivated throughout, despite the typically British chilly weather conditions.

The stage is basic, but again with a little imagination it works. At one end there’s the platform at the other there’s the house, but so spellbinding is the performance you forget the fact that it’s actually also the bridge over the train tunnel, and at one point, the train itself.

This adaptation by Laura Turner doesn’t cast children in the main roles. Instead, directed by Bryony Tebbutt, a cast of six adults nicely take on all roles. Credit to Marcus Churchill for playing Father, Doctor, Old Man and Russian, as well as puppet master to the animal cast. James Elmes brings comedy to Mr Perks, the stationmaster who befriends the three children believably played by Lauren Falconer, Lucy Forrester and Tom Riddell. Clara Edmonds puts in fine performances also as the saintly mother and Mrs Perks.

Congratulations to all involved for recreating the excitement and drama of an old family classic on an open-air stage and thank you too to the weather for not spoiling a magical summer evening of entertainment.

Outdoor theatre continues in Nottingham throughout July/August.

Outdoor theatre Info:

The Importance of Being Earnest

presented by Heartbreak Productions
FRIDAY 15 JULY 7PM
Wollaton Hall

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