BWW Reviews: THE RAILWAY CHILDREN, King's Cross Theatre, January 14 2015

"Daddy... My Daddy." But we'll arrive at that station later.

You can't just throw money at a problem and expect to solve it - or so we're told. Well, money has been flung at the windy, post-industrial hinterland of King's Cross and it's been spent well - very well. You can still see the footprint of the sheds and the yards, but the environment has been transformed into something creative and cultural (and, okay, commercial) - it's one of my favourite parts of London. It's a problem solved.

So you really start pulling into The King's Cross Theatre (new terminus for The Railway Children) long before arriving at its quaint ticket office and walking to its beautifully rendered early 20th century Waiting Room. This is event theatre and you just hope, because the play's the thing after all, that the production can match the procession.

It does.

Staged on a traverse stage, the central spine is a railway track - yes, there's more than one reason why it's called the King's Cross Theatre - on which platforms move up and down its fifty yards or so length. That ingenious trick allows designer Joanna Scotcher and director Damian Cruden not just the opportunity to keep the action close to everyone streteched along both sides of the "shed", but also creates the constant sense of movement that complements the lighting, sound and dry ice. It's a story told from the perspective of bright-eyed kids: and bright-eyed kids are seldom static - neither is the show.

The kids are played by adults, but each catches the childlike quality of their character. Serena Manteghi's Bobbie scolds and aches for the hole in her life where her father should be; Jack Hardwick's Peter is gauche and arrogant, but buckles quickly, a boy not yet a man; Louise Calf's Phyllis is funny and clever, but guilty about living in the moment so much that she forgets her mother's (and Bobbie's) pain. They get excellent support from Jeremy Swift's Perks, not as spiky as Bernard Cribbins' unforgettable turn in the film, but decency personified and from Caroline Harker's mother, stiff-upper-lipping it through the family's trials.

Though the plot can be far-fetched and corny (but all the narration and fourth wall breaking makes the more implausible elements easier to swallow), at its heart Edith Nesbit's tale is only partly about a familly rent asunder in London then fused again in Yorkshire - it's more about doing the good thing, even if it's not the right thing. This is the lesson of the breathtakingly staged tunnel rescue, of Perks overlooking Peter's "coal-mining", of Bobbie's naive appeal to the old gentleman. And, heartstoppingly, when the steam clears, the reward for doing the good thing is not in heaven, but there on the platform - "Daddy... My Daddy."

To post a comment, you must register and login.