Ghost Train rolls at Harquail
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This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from June 1989.
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The curtain opens on a pleasantly atmospheric set and the story develops around a group of travellers inadvertently stranded for the night in a Cornish Railway Station. It turns out that the station has a rather dark history and the stationmaster, played by Colin Wilson, tells the gathering that there may be a ghost train that will appear. His main speech where he tells this story is well delivered. How the rest of the story develops, well, you'll just have to go and see for yourself. The two main performers who catch the eye are Martin Couch, as the perfectly wimpish Teddie Deakin and Susan St. Masrie as the slightly unstable Julia Price. In Susan the Drama Society have quite a catch as her credits include TV and stage work in the States, an Armed Forces European Tour and hit Nashville records! Her experience and poise on stage comes across very well indeed.
The rest of the cast of twelve seemed comfortable enough in their roles, though there did seem to be some "teething" problems with the third act which I am sure will be ironed out this week.
One slight criticism with what otherwise is a visually acceptable show is the cosutme of Elsie Winthrop. When all around are in muted tones to create the right atmosphere I had to wonder why Stuart Hurst, the director,m chose to put her in a strikingly scarlet outfit when really the part did not call for the character to stand out so much. I kept waiting for her to do something. Apart from that, the direction was fine and the story evolved at a reasonable pace. My main concern was the lack of audience that must have made life very difficult for the performers.
There were over 30 people involved in putting this production on stage and the audience, the night I was there, was very poor. This is a good show and a tremendous amount of th thought and work went into it.
If you take an evening off and see "Ghost Train" you won't regret it. The show runs from Wednesday until Saturday until 1 July in the Harquail Theatre from 8 pm. Tickets are available from JEC Building Consultants (90300) or at the door.
