THE RAILWAY CHILDREN, CYGAMS, NOVEMBER 7, 2007

Director and choreographer–Ray Jeffery, Musical Director – Bryan Cass

It is both a privilege and responsibility to review a world premiere; privilege to witness the birth of something new and responsibility to offer an opinion that may influence, in some tiny way, its future development. With shows that have been performed many times a reviewer has some expectation against which he is making a comparison; often times this internal benchmark may be misguided or even downright wrong but at least he has something. With CYGAM's The Railway Children my only context was the film of my childhood starring Jenny Agutter. No doubt that context was shared by most of the audience also and so we mused in collective silence about how to get a steam train on stage, whether the tunnel scene would be skipped and what could possibly recreate those glorious outdoor scenes. As it transpired these were issues over which we need not have worried; of more concern to me, as this play with occasional music unfolded, was the rapid progression of scene after scene, 29 in all, with just 17 songs to link them. Although scene changes were generally slick, brought about by the ingenious use of a tripartite revolving set centre stage, the large stage had to be filled in with black tabs either side of the central set. Although there may have been little choice on such a stage I felt that the intimacy of bedroom, kitchen and sitting room scenes were somewhat lost with such an arrangement. By contrast the company scenes that used wide backcloths, such as the representation of a busy London street at the beginning and the railway platform scenes worked well. This is not to say that acting was poor, it was not; quite the opposite. The three “Railway Children”, their mother and Perks seemed to carry the largest burden of lines and carried them well. Harry Brown was remarkably endearing as Peter, with an impressive vocal delivery and very expressive arms. He certainly had a very high cuteness quotient and the audience loved him. Phyllis, played by Isabelle Casey, had less to say as the younger sister but complemented her siblings well while Roberta (Rhiannon Heap) seemed to have the lion's share of lines. The latter played the strong, older sister with superb maturity to the very end, when her shouts of “My Daddy, My Daddy” caused me to shudder with emotion which I had to stifle by gripping the arm of the seat. Roberta's singing was excellent, particularly in her solo and her duet with her mother. All the children, who were playing children's roles, managed to maintain a good English accent throughout without being gratingly plummy; Mother managed this too and so provided a good contrast between herself and those adult character roles, such as Mr and Mrs Perks and Mrs Viney, which were meant to be “rural working class”. These distinctions, emphasized also by differences in costume and general deportment, must have required some drilling, so all credit to all those involved. While I enjoyed The Railway Children I felt it could have benefited from another good chorus number in each Act, not only to provide chorus with more work but to enrich the audience enjoyment of what were otherwise only brief musical interludes. To conclude, I felt that a smaller stage would be more suitable for the way this play is currently written and that tabs either side of the tunnel would have made the hare and hounds scene more realistic. It was possible to see the boys go through the tunnel and then exit through a door stage left. This rather spoilt the excellent illusion of the train, created by a pipe emitting “steam” to the accompaniment of the relevant soundtrack. Until Roberta collapsed I was quite convinced I would see a locomotive in side view but perhaps that would have spoilt the more dramatic scene actually witnessed. This production has the advantage of a great book but some great songs wouldn't go amiss. CYGAMS did an excellent job but I for one would vote for some new material before another outing with The Railway Children.

Reviewer Stewart Adkins