The train now departed

Our fourth and last production for 2025 reached its terminus on Saturday night after four dramatic performances at South Brent Village Hall. The revised version of “The Ghost Train” by Arnold Ridley, adapted by Jocelyn and Nicolas Ridley, attracted a modern record number of people in our audience, who seemed to love every performance.

We’ve been delighted by the feedback we’ve had for the show, with a great cast, great set and genuinely astonishing sound and light effects all contributing to a memorable finale to our 100th year celebrations.

Sullen stationmaster and doomsayer Saul Hodgkin was brought vividly to life by Mark Vickers, who spun his chilling tale of disaster and supernatural mystery to great effect before his unexpected ‘death’, then brought marvellously piqued venom to his unexpected reappearance.

Robin Willoughby and Bridie Kennerley brought bickering husband and wife Richard and Elsie Winthrop to life, with Robin increasingly infuriated and Bridie brilliantly capturing the ostensibly strong woman with underlying vulnerability.

Newly-weds Charles and Peggy Murdock were played by Dan Thomas, in his second SBADS performance, and stalwart Nat Cook. Dan expertly brought Charles’s gravitas and common sense to the stage, while Nat captured the distinctly timid Peggy to a tee. Judging by the sounds from the Hall, her apparent panic at being left alone in the waiting room in one scene caused one of our audiences to be as scared for her life as she was!

Elderly spinster Miss Bourne (not Mrs Bourne!) was adeptly captured by Sharon Hughes, who fretted and panicked and scolded until a flask of brandy (we won’t say what was really in it) caused her to have a nice lie down on an uncomfortable table for over half the script, reviving just long enough at the end to deliver the play’s punchline.

Infuriating the travellers and frustrating the crooks, Teddy Deakin was played by Tristram Grevatt who clowned his way through most of the play and brought plenty of laughter, before transforming into a hardened police detective at the last minute and getting a genuine gasp of surprise from the audience for his trouble.

Did we mention crooks? Ah, yes.

The apparently disturbed Julia Price was portrayed by Sam Richards, returning to the SBADS stage for the first time since 2001. She brought realistic confusion and terror to her scenes, before she herself went through a dramatic transformation when revealing her true colours.

Peter Brown suavely played the man known as John Stirling, expertly seeming to attempt simultaneously to persuade Julia that the ghost train isn’t real and that everyone else should be scared for their lives, before being frustrated and unmasked at the very end.

A small role of Jackson on stage was taken by Tim McGill, who was the very picture of a ’20s plain clothes policeman. A much bigger role off-stage for Tim was devising the light effects for the show (cunningly including, out of sight, the cues for the train sounds), for which he must be particularly thanked. Trust us, it’s not at all easy to get the lights of train carriages to play across large windows with less than four feet behind the stage!

Effectively another character in its own right, it’s hardly surprising that a locomotive and its carriages play an important role in The Ghost Train. As well as the lights passing across the station windows created by Tim McGill, we had an entire team back stage generating all the sound effects live using traditional methods. We’ve had a lot of questions about the train effects, and we didn’t quite follow the original ‘score’, so we will post a detailed explanation soon, but for now we’ll simply say that ‘AJ’ Kempthorne, Tim McGill, Val Meek, Jess Munday, Alan Prince, Gre Wall and Julia Willoughby worked feverishly just off-stage with, drums, a coal bunker, sandpaper, whistles, milk churns and a garden roller to create an astonishing train effect that could literally be felt as well as heard steaming through our station. People said we couldn’t do it – but we jolly well did!

Cathie Pannell took on the Herculean task of directing The Ghost Train, and tirelessly did an excellent job of grappling with the complexity of the script and the difficulties of staging it on our small stage. She deserves our enormous gratitude for her endless patience, hard work and vision in bringing the show to the stage. Cathie was assisted by Greg Wall as producer, who also found himself trying to co-ordinate the effects team too.

‘AJ’ Kempthorne ably juggled effects and once again did an excellent job as Stage Manager. Val Meek acted as ‘continuity’ (as we euphemistically call the prompt) and valiantly battled the cast’s attempts to throw her off track.

The dank, damp and depressing waiting room of Fal Vale station was brought to the stage by Tristram Grevatt, with Peter Brown, Alan Prince and Tim McGill needing particular thanks for helping to build the whole thing from scratch in a fortnight. As we have come to expect when Tristram’s in charge of a set, it was designed to look as convincing as possible, full of detail from the mould and dirt on the walls to the fittings glimpsed through the ticket office flap and the tiny references to Fal Val in the timetables on the board, with authentic-looking furniture and fittings almost all custom built or adapted.

Adam Cook created the atmospheric and deliberately gloomy lighting for the stage and operated it all as expertly as usual.

Linda Capon joined us for the first time to be in charge of the costumes, with Val Meek assisting. It’s no easy task to find the right-looking clothes, and there was a lot of work in choosing, sourcing, adapting and maintaining such a variety of period outfits, for which we are very grateful.

Front of House was expertly organised (and decorated) by Veronica Brown with a large team of helpers, with Richard Stevens providing musical interludes before the show.

We trust that this staging of a 100-year old script was a fitting finale to our hundredth year celebrations. We extend our sincere thanks, as always, to everyone who contributed to the production by lending us props and equipment, appearing on stage, making effects, staffing back stage and front of house and, above all, in the audience. Thank you!