The Signalman at Darlington Hippodrome Review

Reviews

5 Nov

Written by Stacy for Theatre & Tonic

Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review

Last night at Darlington Hippodrome I settled into my seat ready to be swept into the brooding world of Middle Ground Theatre Company’s The Signalman. The set instantly promised atmosphere. The signal box, all wooden beams and narrow windows, hovered over a dark railway tunnel that seemed capable of swallowing anything in silence. It felt like stepping through a doorway into Dickens’ imagination.

Chris Walker as the Signalman, carried the role with a brittle, haunted intensity. He held the audience’s attention with every wary glance towards the tunnel, as if a spectre lurked just out of sight. Opposite him, John Burton’s Traveller was calm, charming and quietly determined to unravel the mystery. Their exchanges were the strongest part of the show. Walker’s internal panic pushed up against Burton’s gentleness in a way that made me lean forward, curious to see who would influence the other.

The production is undeniably gothic. Smudges of mist curled around the stage, a bell rang from nowhere and low rumbles hinted at trains approaching long before we saw any light. I enjoyed the shadowy stillness of it all. But this is where I felt the show missed a trick. Although the story itself is gloomy and psychological, I never felt that sense of deep-rooted unease that should gradually tighten around your chest in a ghost story. The tension never fully accumulated. Moments that should have heightened the dread seemed to dissolve quickly, and before I realised it, we were at the climax. I found myself thinking, is that it?

I completely understand that The Signalman is a Victorian tale, and a faithful retelling matters. But when you revive a piece for a modern audience, there’s room to enhance the experience without tampering with the tone or the period. We now have incredible lighting design, projection and sound technologies that can build atmosphere layer by layer. A stronger use of those tools could have made the tunnel feel almost sentient and amplified that rising panic in the Signalman’s mind. Instead, the production stayed quite restrained, and I left wishing they had pushed further into the psychological horror the story hints at. That said, the performances from Chris Walker and John Burton remained compelling throughout. They grounded the play with a sincerity that kept me invested even when I wanted more tension from the staging itself.

Walking out of the theatre after the show, I felt thoughtful rather than unsettled. The production left me appreciating the story’s gothic charm but wishing it had used every theatrical trick available to push the emotion deeper. When a ghost story’s final moment lands, you want your heart to thump and the hairs on your arms to stand up. For me, this production hovered just shy of that. Still, if you enjoy a quietly eerie night at the theatre and two strong performances leading a classic Dickens tale, The Signalman has plenty to offer.