REVIEW | The Railway Children, Little Theatre Leicester

★★★★

Reviewer - Hollie

*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review.

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All aboard for a top-notch train trip to Yorkshire!

The journey begins at The Little Theatre in Leicester for director Leigh White’s adaptation of E. Nesbit’s classic family story ‘The Railway Children.’ The theatre audience were directed to the auditorium by train station signs resembling the Yorkshire village of Oakworth.

The story opens just before Christmas with the Waterbury family full of hope, happiness and positivity for the Christmas season. The scene is set in 1905 with one of the Waterbury children, Peter, played by Harvey Griffiths, opening a toy train as his Christmas present. Then Christmas is suddenly cancelled when their father is requested to have a meeting with two mysterious men in his study.

Life then changes forever when father disappears and the family has to move to Yorkshire and travel on the train with only one suitcase each. Peter, Bobbie and Phyllis’ first impressions of Yorkshire are that it is cold and dreary, as the affluent Waterbury’s are used to being waited on by a range of servants in the bustling city of London. The family meet the friendly station master Mr Perks, played by Tom Young, who shouts “All change please!’ from the platform as the trains arrive. And all change it is for the family as they meet Mr Perks’ children Colin, Elsie, Ginger and Patch played by Rhys Pettit, Lily Carter, Hattie Moore and Autumn Lisseman who accuse the family of wearing fancy clothes, fancy pants and fancy braces!

The cast of children and adults performed their opening night brilliantly with a natural level of camaraderie between them and they provided lots of laughs for the audience throughout the show with their accurate representations of the characters they were playing! A particular stand-out moment is the performance of ‘Posh Talk’ between the two groups of children.

Bobbie, Phyllis and Peter are introduced to the villagers and over time make new friends and look after Mr Szczepansky, played by Michael Holland, an exiled Russian author who has arrived in England to find his family who have fled there. The scenery and props designed by Gem Greaves focus on the train station as being the centre of the village where the community come together and look after each other. The costumes designed by John Bale are authentic of the 1900s and remind the audience of a time gone by. The use of minimal props and the family’s suitcases symbolise that everything is temporary but the relationships made in Yorkshire will last a lifetime.

In the second half, the story continues to center around the train station that Mr Perks is in charge of. “That’s the way to run a railway” he states as the children get to know him and his family. The Waterbury’s remain positive and busy as they start to learn more about what has happened to their father. A telegram arrives for their mother towards the end of the performance. What does it say?

Catch the train at The Little Theatre until Saturday 15th April 2023! Full steam ahead for a family show of fun!