one4review | On 17, Aug 2024

A retelling of Charles Dickens’s classic ghost story, written after Dickens himself survived a train crash, produced by the Paragon Theatre Collective, directed by Sam Raffal and with Tim Larkfield playing the part of The Signalman.

This version of Dickens’s short story places the signalman himself at the centre of the story in what is a virtuoso solo performance. Those who remember the classic BBC drama, The Signalman with Denholm Elliot, will remember the story as a two-hander, with the signalman talking to a mysterious stranger. This time the audience takes on the role of the stranger, as the signalman is addressing us directly. When the play begins, the signalman bursts onto the stage and shouts ‘who’s there?, looking down from his signal box. We learn that some time before, the signalman has witnessed an horrendous accident on the line, when the dead and wounded were carried along the track and laid out in front of his signal box. He recalled seeing a terrible apparition on the eve of the accident, who appeared at the mouth of the tunnel below his box, waving a red light, with a hand across his face and shouting ‘look out below’. When the apparition made a second appearance, a girl fell from a the train the day after and died, her body being placed in the signal box. Now the apparition has made a third appearance , clearly warning of danger, but the helpless signalman does not know what the danger is and where it is going to happen.

Larkfield is a great storyteller and brilliantly captures the terror of the signalman, the increasing levels of despair that plague him and his increasing reliance on alcohol, keeping the attention of the audience throughout. There is a slight lull in the intensity towards the end, and when the signalman suddenly sings a song, this does break the tension slightly, but nevertheless this is a compelling hour or fringe theatre and I would recommend catching it.

****

Reviewed by Howard
Zoo Southside, Studio
14.55 (50mins)
Until 25th August (not 19th)