The Railway Children

National Railway Museum

York

4/5

It’s not often an inanimate object receives the biggest applause of the night. The Great Western Railway Pannier Tank 5775, the locomotive from the original film The Railway Children, nonetheless gets the kind of reception usually reserved for royalty.

A revival of writer Mike Kenny and director Damian Cruden’s 2008 stage production of E Nesbit’s well loved children’s book about family life and resourcefulness, it’s previously won an Olivier Award for Best Entertainment and has crossed the Atlantic to be staged in Toronto.

The revival doesn’t stray from the winning formula, with Martin Barrass even reprising his 2009 role as the kindly stationmaster Mr Perks (his stint in the Theatre Royal’s annual pantomime evident in his audience banter during the interval).

With a formula this good, however, there’s little need to change.

A partnership with the National Railway Museum, the audience is divided by a railway track that’s variously turned into a threatening rail tunnel with the use of transparent black drapes and used as the central stage as moveable platforms are pulled into place by technicians dressed as railway men.

It’s this attention to detail that impresses as much as Kenny’s lively script, which sees the children narrating from a future vantage point.

Beth Lilly is especially notable as the naughty, irrepressible but warm-hearted Phyllis. Michael Lambourne is also a twinkly-eyed revelation as Old Gentleman, being a last minute substitute for Berwick Kaler, who’s currently convalescing.

The only weaknesses within the production are those implicit within the book: that it’s comprised of a series of sometimes unrelated vignettes. Despite this it’s impossible not to feel moved by the child-centric view of one family’s struggle to be reunited.

Showing until September 5 2015. Telephone: (01904) 623568. Book online: www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk

Susan Darlington