Train of Thought

THE RAILWAY CHILDREN

Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, Monday 11^th September, 2017

 

With delicious irony, the fates delay the curtain up on this play centring around trains.  Ha, ha, universe!

But when this production from Exeter Northcott Theatre does get under way, it’s full steam ahead for a lovely piece of theatre.

When their father leaves them under mysterious circumstances, siblings Roberta, Phyllis and Peter move from London with their mother to a quaint but humble country cottage near to a railway.  As a distraction from their newfound poverty, the children take to waving at passengers on the trains, notably an ‘Old Gentleman’ who proves to be crucial to later plot developments.  They also strike up friendship with stationmaster Perks and his eldest son, John.

On the surface, the show drips with Brexiteer nostalgia for an England that never existed.  A closer look reveals this to be a place where people are nasty and suspicious when a foreigner in need enters their midst – but not E. Nesbit’s heroic children, whose only impulse is to help the poor man.  It’s a place where people worry about the expense of seeing the doctor – he runs some kind of private health insurance club the locals chip in to.

Against the backdrop of this society, the three kids learn that sharing is best, that people have pride and there is a difference between gifts and handouts.  I am gobsmacked; I had no idea the story was so political.  Dave Simpson’s adaptation of the classic novel does not shy away from the author’s socialist leanings.

As Roberta, the eldest, Millie Turner captures the essence of a girl between youth and maturity, while as her siblings Peter and Phyllis, Vinay Lad and Katherine Carlton are spirited in their immaturity.  The kids squabble but never lose their sense of decency and fair play.

The immensely likeable Stewart Wright narrates as the avuncular Perks; Callum Goulden does a nice comic turn as his tearaway offspring.  Will Richards makes a striking Russian, expressive before he even utters a word in any language, while Andrew Joshi’s increasingly knackered doctor provides much of the broader humour.  Joy Brook shines as the authoritative, firm but fair mother, all stiff upper lip and sacrifice for the sake of her children while espousing their Russian houseguest’s revolutionary ideals.

Timothy Bird’s set, costume and video designs not only evoke the Edwardian setting but add layers of artificiality, blending practical effects (a cut-out carriage is a hoot!) with projected animations, reminding us that this seemingly cosy place is not real.  Director Paul Jepson ensures the energy of his performers is not overshadowed by the impressive technical features of the production, and adds effective bits of business to keep the actors to the fore: a slow-motion moment during Perks’s birthday party, for example – there is some lovely character playing by Andrea Davy as Perks’s wife.

The iconic moments are all here.  Averting a rail disaster by ripping up Roberta’s red petticoat and waving it like mad.  The touching reunion… Misty-eyed?  Me?  Must just be a bit of steam in my eye.

All right, I admit it, I am touched right in the feels and the needle on my nostalgia dial is in the red, but most of all I am struck that this tale from a more innocent age over a century ago speaks so strongly to us today and has such currency.  There is a lot to be said for Englishness, for doing what is right, for supporting the underdog; just as there is a lot to be said against the nasty, narrow-minded, inward-looking, xenophobic attitudes of many English people today!  In 2017!  As if world events since the book first appeared mean nothing.

How much underwear do I have to tear up and wave around to stop this country going off the rails?

Millie Turner, Vinay Lad and Katherine Carlton (Photo: Mark Dawson)

 

Easy to Swallow

SWALLOWS AND AMAZONS
Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, Thursday 26th April, 2012

Helen Edmundson’s adaptation of Arthur Ransome’s classic children’s story plays it straight, submerging us in the imaginative world of the young characters as they embark on a weekend of adventure in the Lake District.

It begins in a dusty attic. An old woman unearths a photograph album. Around her, the cast appear behind picture frames: a wedding photo, a candid portrait. A parrot, depicted by a feather duster and a pair of secateurs, is the old woman’s link to her past. The scene transforms and we meet the Walker children as they were when they were aged between 8 and 12. But there is not a child in sight. The cast are all grown adults in a Blue Remembered Hills kind of way. It takes a bit of getting used to – especially when the largest and most beardy actor plays the youngest of the children! But you learn to look beyond the deep voices and the hairy legs and what you find is a very charming production. Director Tom Morris takes us into the children’s adventure, using the transformative power of imagination rather than naturalistic representation. And so, rowing across the lake, coping with a thunderstorm and a flock of cormorants are all shown using sticks, ribbons, garden shears… the kind of things the children would find lying around.

Richard Holt is eldest child, John, self-appointed captain and caught between adulthood and childhood. He juts out his chin, spouts orders and comes up with resourceful ideas, but he is still a young boy, afraid when things go wrong, but putting on a brave face for the sake of the others. It’s an endearing performance and reminds us, we may be adult-sized ourselves but we all still harbour our own insecurities. Sometimes all we want is our mum.

Katie Moore is bossy Susan. I found her the most annoying of the quartet but this is down to character rather than performance. Susan is all about domesticity. Cleaning and cooking, she strives to conform to her ascribed gender role. Of course, this was the way little girls were and were expected to be. The play shows us not only how the nature of childhood has changed but also how society has moved on.

Akiya Henry is little sister, Titty, a tom-boy hankering for adventure but also a thoughtful and well-read individual. This character is the life-blood of Ransom’s book and Akiya Henry lights up the stage with her lively, well-observed and funny performance.

Lastly, we have Stewart Wright as 7 year old (but nearly 8) Roger. (I suppose Titty and Roger make a change from the Dick and Fanny in Enid Blyton stories). His tantrums and enthusiastic outbursts are also well-observed. The cast show us the childishness of so-called adults in their squabbles over territory, their negotiations for peace and, most tellingly, when adult characters (dubbed ‘barbarians’) stamp their feet and refuse to listen to the children. It is here that humanity is shown to be at its most infantile and unreasonable.

The Walker kids encounter two sisters who style themselves as Amazon pirates (Celia Adams and Sophie Waller, snarling and making menacing glances to great effect). A truce is agreed and they join forces against Captain Flint, the girls’ uncle who has neglected them in their make-believe in order to indulge in that most selfish of activities: writing a book. The play culminates in a pitched battle in which the audience is invited to join by chucking rock-shaped lumps of foam at the Captain. The kids in the row ahead of me certainly loved this interaction. The adults too suddenly reverted to childhood and joined in.

The score is by the Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon. The music and lyrics are effective within the context of the action, performed by the cast bringing instruments on stage, but out of context, I don’t think there are any hit numbers or showstoppers. Yet it’s all part and parcel of an enchanting and delightful piece of theatre.

At the time, 1920s, Ransome’s stories depicted childhood and imaginative play as it was. The world has changed. Do kids today still play that way? They certainly don’t go off without adult supervision with boats and penknives and camp fires. In protecting children so much are we in fact denying them some of the best childhood has to offer? Plonking them in front of a DVD or leaving them in their rooms with the internet and computer games doesn’t come close to the experience of building a world in your imagination and learning to navigate the choppy waters of human relationships.

The characters imagine themselves as figures from history and literature: Louis Bleriot, “stout” Cortez, Marco Polo and even Mowgli being suckled by wolves. I wonder how many of the children in the audience recognised the references. Who are the role models today? Who do they pretend to be these days, if they pretend to be anyone? A Transformer? Harry Potter? Katie Price? Looking back, I’m glad I was a child when I was. And before you say so, it was a good deal more recently than the 1920s.