THEATRE REVIEW: The Railway Children ★★★

The Railway Children

Kings Cross Station, London

31st January 2016

I'm always finding myself fascinated when I watch a performance how much it can surprise me in many factors, from the technical sides like Wonder.Land, to set designs like Matilda, but here it was the staging as I went to King's Cross Station to watch The Railway Children.

So this wasn't too much of a surprise as I'm letting on as I actually knew all about the show being performed on the tracks at Kings Cross, but I was more surprised in the fact of how wonderfully creative the team behind it were to show all the action. There were moving slabs that constantly were on the go to set up scenes and allow the whole audience to watch the action, and this would not have been as slick as it was if it wasn't for the hard work from all the stagehands who were there to physically move them about.

I have to admit that I didn't think the storyline was particularly strong throughout the whole production, but I did think the acting was brilliant from all involved, and the staging was used to perfect use, especially during a race scene, where drapes were pulled all the way on either side of the staging to create a tunnel like atmosphere, with the lights darkened, and it actually made it incredibly atmospheric using this technique.

Overall, I found The Railway Children to be a show that held back no boundaries and fully pushed the production to the limits, especially with the arrival of an actual train at the end of the first act, and arriving in at the finale, which at that point I found my jaw nearly dropping to the floor.