Darlington Hippodrome – until 19 October 2019
4****
I love a good thriller and Bill Kenwright’s adaptation of The Lady Vanishes, presented by the The Classic Thriller Company does not disappoint.
Set in the late 1930’s (the film was made in 1938), our play starts in a very atmospheric Austrian railway station, where a variety of travellers gather waiting to start/continue their journey back to England after an avalanche caused the train to be stopped.
Our assembly of characters include socialite Iris Henderson (Scarlett Archer) who is travelling back to London to marry a Lord Just before returning to the delayed train, to continue the journey to the UK, Iris receives an accidental blow to the head. Kind, former governess Miss Froy (Gwen Taylor) helps Iris on board. They take tea and then, on Miss Froy’s advice, Iris goes to sleep. On wakening, Iris finds Miss Froy has disappeared and all her fellow travellers deny ever having seen her. Iris decides she must track down Miss Froy and enlists engineer and music lover Max (Nicholas Audsley) to help find her. The train has not stopped so she must still be on the train.
Also on board are cricket mad Charters (Dennis Lill) and Caldicott (Ben Nealon), Lawyer Eric (Mark Wynter) and his mistress Margaret (Rosie Thompson). Dr Hartz (Andrew Lancel), an SS Official (Joe Reisig), an Italian magician (Martin Carroll) and a Nun (Natalie Law)
The set, by Morgan Large, was impressive changing from station, to train, to station seamlessly with a great use of lighting (Charlie Morgan Jones) and sound (Dan Samson) to make it seem like a train on its journey – especially when the characters bob around giving the impression of movement.
I genuinely loved this show, with all its twists, turns and red herrings. At the end of Act 1, I had no idea of where the story was going so it was nice to talk to my fellow theatre goers to find out their thoughts on the story. By the big reveal I had guessed some of the plot but not the biggest twist of it all – although any Miss Marple drama should have taught us that kind spinsters are always the one to keep an eye on.
A thoroughly enjoyable night out