Heartbreak Productions specialise in open-air performances for children and young people, and this afternoon they produced their version of Edith Nesbit's dated classic, The Railway Children.
In a nutshell, the story tells of three young children, who are accustomed to the fineries of life, find themselves along with their mother, having to move away and live in the countryside in a poor village close to a railway. Their father has been imprisoned, falsely, for treason, and so they must muddle through until he is released. The children find amusement and unlikely friendships at the station and watching the passing trains. A kindly old man, a Russian novelist, Mr. Perks, and a young boy called Jim, among others, all enter the narrative. Eventually their father is found not-guilty, and he comes to their rural retreat to reunite himself with his family.
Not making things easy for themselves they chose to perform this in a thrust format [ie.. the audience being on two sides and the acting taking place in a thin oblong in the centre] although I have to say that they coped with this perhaps misjudged staging decision adroitly. What did work excellently though was the amplification. An outdoor performance, which takes into consideration all possible background noises such as passing traffic, passers-by, aeroplanes etc, is apt to ask the actors to simply project their voices more, or, as I have seen on a couple of occasions, actors actually shouting at the tops of their voices to try and make themselves understood and heard above the noise of British Gas drilling nearby! Here, there was no such concern. Not only had all the actors had the appropriate vocal training and were naturally pitching their voices correctly, there were also 4 peripheral microphones which went to speakers on the sides of the audience. The result was that even when backs were turned, as they had to be to utilise the stage configuration, we were still able to hear everything. The volume was not too loud either, and was a little louder than a normal speaking voice. This was highly laudable.
Their version of the story started in the present day, as a group of people waiting on Giggleswick station platform for a delayed train. In order to keep themselves and the fellow passengers (us) amused while we waited patiently for the train they would act out a story for us. This resulted in a lightning change of costume [they removed their hi-viz waistcoats!], and the tale of The Railway Children of 1905 started with a song. {why couldn't the story have been updated to the present day?}
All boded well, and indeed the acting and audience interaction was beyond reproach. They told the story sensibly and sympathetically with characterisations which were neither patronising or mono-dimensional, but were nevertheless caricatures primarily. Their target audience was engaged, and our anticipation was high.
Sadly, at least for most this afternoon I imagine, is that it never went any further than that. What they did was very good, that is without question, but the dialogue was very wordy, there were too many similar characters played by the same actors, and so the story-line would have been lost on most of their target audience members. There were very few moments of comedy (not that it is a story that easily lends itself to humour) but that notwithstanding there was little there for the kids to engage in in a humorous context. There were no songs except right at the very beginning and end, and no dancing. Therefore it became very much a period play, and as the performance progressed I could see those youngsters around me becoming more and more fidgety or disengaged. There was, after about 70 minutes, a short interval. This was the company's biggest mistake. The second half, with the exception of the fast-forward recap of act 1 at the beginning, was boring.
For this play to truly engage and captivate, I would most sincerely suggest cutting down the number of characters, making those characters hugely different and comedic wherever possible [Miller's Ruth was the only example here], keeping the story to essential plot developing moments only, putting in more music, movement and more audience participation and acknowledgement, and the whole show lasting an hour straight through without interval. That would be my advise to any company in the TIE or Children's Theatre game. What was presented to us this afternoon was a kind of half-way house between that and a 'teenie weepie'; a different kind of play altogether and geared for a slightly older child. The show is advertised as 'suitable for all' which on a profanity level I cannot argue with, however, this show belonged neither in the primary school camp nor in the middle school camp; it seemed unable to make its mind up. This I do believe was the root of the problem. The Railway Children is not a story for pre-primary and primary children; and yet that was the majority of the audience this afternoon.
The set I found rather confusing - even for me! I understand the need to sometimes mime objects but the 'pump trolley' was unrecognisable and beyond your target audience. And I simply didn't understand the sudden transformation from the brightly lit station platform dais to a very dark and forbidding railway tunnel. I doubt that would have been recognised by most of the children either.
The costumes were good, the dialects / accents sounded authentic, and the company of 5 were obviously talented and their chemistry onstage working together was lovely. Their ad-libbed audience preamble at the start of the show and the jamming of pop songs on ukeleles during the interval though, not only showcased their talents to their better advantage, these moments were also the more entertaining for some of the youngsters!
Ashleigh Aston played the younger sister of Bobby (Roberta) with ease; her facial expressions and body language making us believe in her minor years. Faye Lord was older sister Phil (Phyllis) who again made good use of voice and body. George Naylor was Peter, the third child, and his petulance and naivety made his character quite charming. Bryony Tebbutt played their mother (with a couple of other cameos thrown in for good measure!) and everything else (9 roles in fact) was played by Shaun Miller. The whole was directed by Miriam Higgins.
What started out with huge promise, and indeed had a cast that could have delivered so much more, the end result was an overlong, samey, and rather pedestrian piece of theatre which although had moments of pure beauty and genius in there, were sandwiched between lengthy periods of wordy mediocrity which failed to truly engage.
Reviewer - Matthew Dougall
on - 16/8/18
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