"The Girl On The Train"

Nottingham Theatre Royal.

Written by Paula Hawkins with this play being adapted from the 2015 novel by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel, "The Girl On The Train " is a piece that I've not read or seen on film, so I am completely new to this story. It was last performed at the Theatre Royal pre Covid, but for some reason I didn't catch it at that time.

Rachel Watson longs for a different life, a more glamorous life than what she has. Her only escape is watching the perfect couple, Megan and husband Scott, through the train window every day, happy and in love. Or so it seems from her view from the train window. Then Rachel finds out that the woman she’s been secretly watching, has suddenly disappeared, and she finds herself as a witness and even a suspect in a mystery in which she will face bigger revelations than she could ever have anticipated.

Giovanna Fletcher plays Rachel Watson. Rachel likes a drink and she has memory issues; she is also still burning a flame for her ex-husband, Tom, constantly phoning him and popping round at all hours, in short, making a proper menace of herself to Tom and his new wife Anna.

Jason Merrells, who I lost saw on stage in Derby last year in "The Twelve Angry Men", plays Tom Watson, Rachel's long suffering ex-husband. Megan actually minds Tom and Anna's baby sometimes, so they know each other. But they did not know where the connection to Rachel comes in, until the story starts to unfold.

Zena Carswell is Anna Watson, Tom's new wife, with whom he has a baby with. Tom and Anna seem to have a blessed life; a lovely home, new baby, Tom has a job that enables him to support Anna, meaning that she can tend to their baby's every need, but also allowing the baby to be looked after when the pressure of motherhood gets just a little too much for Anna.

Samuel Collings plays Scott Hipwell. As with all murders, the first instinct is to blame the husband. He isn't an art fan, and Megan is a true artist, but pretends to understand. He is completely distraught with his wife's murder, so distraught that he takes the first opportunity given to snog Rachel, who he doesn't comprehend why she is even there and only half believes her story of how Megan and Rachel know each other. We discover though that Scott has a violent temper when secrets come to the surface!!

Natalie Dunne is Megan Hipwell. Beautiful, slim, refined and blonde, but she also has issues, which is why she is seeing a therapist, professionally of course. It's through this relationship though we learn more about Megan and the secrets that have been buried deep. Could one of her secrets be her downfall, or at least answer some of the questions that the online rumour-mongers have started to spread?

Daniel Burke is Kamal Abdic, Megan's therapist, to which patient confidentiality seems to be something unheard of. He is tall, good-looking with dark wavy hair; very similar to the man that Rachel spotted from the train window kissing Megan. What kind of therapy is Kamal providing his client in her own home? And with this therapy, does he hold the answers to all of the raised questions, or is he someway involved in Megan's disappearance and murder?

Paul McEwan is Detective Inspector Gaskell, who provides quite a bit of the comedy value in the play, but does he also provide any answers to the riddle of Megan Hipwell's murder?

All these main actors above manage to build and retain that suspense right to the very end, leaving you with many red herrings, twists and turns along with everyone being a suspect.

Oliver Joseph Brooke and Ellie Gallimore make up the ensemble.

Directed by Loveday Ingram, this is a slick, edge of the seat thriller that keeps you there right until the interval, and then places you back there all the way through the second act. It's very stylish and very modern with the graphics and videography that accompany the storyline.

Set and costume design is by Adam Wiltshire. The set is sparse, leaving the background to provide much of the scenery. Throughout you get the image of pouring rain down windows, obviously to depict the train windows. Props, which are dragged on to the stage are placed and removed by the ensemble with great swiftness, concealed a lot of the time by the lighting design and soundscape.

Lighting Designer is Jack Knowles and the Sound Designer is Elizabeth Purnell. Between them they provide a wonderfully unsettling effect in parts. I'll say no more than that because these skills are like having additional ensemble members, moving from scene to scene, almost cinematic.

The Video Designer for this production is Ginny Schiller and especially near the end where we see urban scenes from the view of the train passenger.

When we finally start to piece together what happens, it then becomes extremely unsettling, and watch out for the blood special effect near the end, which is a proper spurter - let's hope all of those stage blood capsules explode with such gusto ( sorry if that has spoilt the effect that what happens on stage is real, it's not but it sure looks realistic)

With not reading or seeing anything about this piece I didn't know what the outcome would be, or who did what to whom, but after you've seen it and you mull everything over afterwards, you see that the clues and signs were there throughout, but I didn't pick up on them, which makes this piece of theatre a great whodunnit mystery one to watch. Stylish and classy right to the end of the line.

"The Girl On The Train" is at the Nottingham Theatre Royal until Saturday 25 January.

 "Robin Hood & The Babes In The Wood" by The Young Performers.

Duchess Theatre, Long Eaton.

And the pantomimes keep on coming, and this is the first ever pantomime that The Young Performers have ever taken on.

Written by Tricia Freer and Barbara Moran, it's full of local name checks with many of the songs used parodied to create an even more localised production.

Sir Guy Of Gisborne wants to marry Maid Marian but his feelings of matrimony are not reciprocated by Maid Marion, so Gisborne decides that, with a little help from The Sheriff Of Nottingham, he will force her hand by kidnapping Marion's nephew and niece, Jack and Jill, and hold them to ransom until she marries him, planning to release them after the ring is on her finger. But this is Pantomime, and things never turn out right for the baddies!

This is a cracking cast, involving several young actors who I've seen in previous productions, and to say that this is their first time performing in panto, they really mastered the special skills needed for this style of production.

Heidi Parsons plays Robin Hood, of course the hero of the piece with his Maid Marion played by Emily Wilkins. Emily performs a lovely version of Ellie Goulding's hit "How Long Will I Love You".

The kidnapped Jack and Jill are played by Dylan Coxon and Emmie Simmons; a feisty pair of young actors.

Sir Guy Of Gisborne is played by Finn Boswell, and what a well cast pair Finn and Will Mellor, who plays The Sheriff Of Nottingham, make. Straight away Will goes for the comedy jugular by appearing on stage as a Western style Sheriff, complete with cowboy hat and badge and talking with a Western accent. Both young men hamming it up wonderfully in true panto style.

Another well paired duo are Chilly Will and Sorely - have you spotted the location nods? This pair are Gisborne and The Sheriff's henchmen. Chilly is played by Ella Charlesworth and Sorely by Millie Weston who also provided  a lot of the dance sections as a pair.

Robin's men were played by Remy-Mae Read (Alan A Dale), Jamie Higgins (Little John), Finlay Tomlinson (Will Scarlet) and a very comical Lewis McDowall (Friar Tuck). Finlay and Lewis even took over with a bit of ad-libbing with two audience members on stage during the singalong section. They conducted the obligatory audience participation section, splitting the audience into half to see who could sing the loudest, and did it really well to say that this form of theatre is very new to them performance wise. It didn't come as any surprise though as this pair always have a bundle of confidence when on stage.

Lexie-Mae Hart plays Airywish - doesn't that sound a little bit like Erewash? - the Good Fairy, who always arrives to help out to win the day.

King Richard appears in the second half, and a strong performance by Violet Graney.

Livvy Read plays Maud Opey - another clever pun don't you think? - the hapless daughter of Mistress Opey - who doesn't work in a launderette before you go that far. There's a really comical section when the wonderful Dame character Mistress is trying to "glow up" Maud in order to attract a husband.

Dillan Brooks is a brilliant Dame and throws himself fully into the character of the Dame, delivering some funny jokes, some corny jokes, some which only the mums and dads would get, and some that got the children belly laughing. All in the best possible taste and tradition of pantomime. Dillan performs a very well thought out parody of Morecambe & Wise's "Bring Me Sunshine" when describing his late husband in song.

Pim, who has applied for the assistant to Mephistopheles, is played by Lucie Artiss, but she ends up crossing over from the dark side to be headhunted by Airywish.

And talking of Mephistopheles, the evil element in this pantomime, this role is played by Alex Povey. Now, I rarely choose any young actor over another, but Alex just blew me away with his characterisation of this devilish character. Alex exploded on stage with such brilliant projection in his voice, his eyes wildly roaming the audience, filled to the brim with confidence. It looked as if Alex was relishing this part and extracted such noisy boos from the audience every time he strode into view. My favourite character actor tonight.

There was a running, or should that be cantering, joke throughout the panto with the pantomime horse appearing and being told that there wasn't a horse in that particular scene. Playing a pantomime horse is by no means easy because both parts need to move in complete unison to make the horse look realistic, and this pair have obviously done a lot of spade work to get this synchronicity so good. There is another joke that you have to watch out for when Jess Henshaw and Lucy Coulson-Jones come on stage to take their bows. I won't say what it is, but look what is written on the T Shirts!

The Fairies are played by Clarissa Armitage, Lottie Ellis, Molly Price and Neve Johnson.

The Townspeople are played by AJ Chamberlain, Amelia-Rose Forecast, Carly Gaunt, Emily-Mae Taylor, Isabella Frampton, Isobel Pickering, Keeley Richardson, Olivia Monk, Sophie Longcroft and Elijah Green.

Directed by Vicky Byrne, who last wore the Director hat a couple of years ago for "High School Musical". As I said panto is a whole different piece of work to a stage play or a musical, but Vicky is so well versed in panto, musical and stage work that she brings together everything that she knows to make sure that this production is nothing short of being a success.

Choreographed by Lottie Ludlow, and there's a lot of choreography to see in this panto. Lottie makes her Young Performers  choreographical (is there such a word?) debut. The cast seem to have really took on all of Lottie's ideas, and a little bird tells me that they also added some of their own ideas, and mixed them all up to deliver this song and dance sensation.

There are some fabulous costumes in this panto, especially Mephistopheles' coat, all provided by Sarah Charlesworth, Andy Cook and friends of the group.

There are loads of songs in this pantomime, some parodied, like the opening number "Good Morning Nottingham", a clever parody of "We Will Rock You" for Robin Hood and his Merry Men, plus songs by Elton John and Kiki Dee, Bryan Adams, Taylor Swift, Dua Lipa, Cher, Petula Clark, Take That and more.

The set design is by Roydon Charlesworth, who is also the Stage Manager. One of the backdrops is a scene showing the entrance to Nottingham Castle, again bringing the panto to a local setting.

Dave Martin is in charge of the lighting, so we know that there's no worries in that department, and there wasn't anything for me to report on in this area.

One area that The Young Performers are passionate about  is the technical side of theatre and the sound side of this show is in the hands of the trainee techies, and they did a really good job of it. I appreciate that with such a large cast, not every young person on stage can have a mic, so there were a few of the actors who weren't heard as clear as some of the others who were amplified, but that is something out of their hands. What they did have control of was done really well, so a big mention for Eva O' Riordan, Gizel Chaparova, Lewis Cuthbert, Maddie Taft and Olivia Michaud - the future of sound operation and design for the future looks good.

Just take a look at this cast as a whole when they take their final bows and you'll see just how much they have enjoyed performing pantomime. Probably nearly as much as the opening night audience on Thursday enjoyed watching this fantastic clutch of Young performers.

"Robin Hood & The Babes In the Wood" is at The Duchess Theatre in Long Eaton until Saturday 18 January.

 "A Fete Worse Than Death" by Richard James.

Bonington Players.

Bonington Theatre.

Billed as a murder/mystery/comedy, the story is a simple one, or that's what I initially thought! During a village fete a murder is committed and it just so happens that the "celebrity" chosen to open the fete is none other than a TV detective, Inspector Brady. Well, who better to solve the murder than a detective? There are many of the village folk who would have grounds to dislike Malcolm, but who would it be, and why? Jealousy? Infidelity? Revenge? Marrow envy? Take your pick, but can Brady solve the clues and get his man... or woman?

Malcolm is the contender for Thornton's biggest marrow, Molly, as well as the newly appointed Chairman of the fete committee. We find out that he is not a very nice man at all and has amassed quite a few enemies, so it's not going to be an easy task to whittle down the suspects for his demise! Eddie Januszczyk plays Eddie whose self-importance and pride is made obvious. So obvious that it's difficult to work out who wouldn't want to do him in.

His wife, Bunny, is played by Charlotte Hukin. Completely overlooked by Malcolm, who pays more attention to the size of his marrow than his wife, who we discover has looked elsewhere for attention, making a possible two suspects straight off. Bunny, probably as indicated by her name, is rather posh, and does not like being overlooked by Malcolm. Love the accent that is used for this character.

Nigel, played by Adrian Bacon, is an historical re-enactor, and has embarked on an affair with Bunny, although you get the feeling that he is taking the affair much more seriously than Bunny is at times. Could jealousy be a strong enough motive for Nigel to re-enact a murder scene? Brilliant costume for Adrian, but I bet he is just a tad warm under all that fur!

The fete organiser is Trish, played by Abi Taylor. While she does all the spadework for the event, Malcolm likes to take all the credit. In the play we find out that, even after all the time and effort Trish has put into the fetes over the year, she seems to have been stabbed in the back by the other committee members when they voted for Malcolm as the new Chairman. Has Trish had enough of being Malcolm's doormat, and has the virtual stabbing in the back made her re-enact the act literally?

Father Mike is the vicar, and a rival to Malcolm in the size of his marrow stakes. Just how important is it to the vicar to usurp Malcolm? They seems to be a few skeletons in the vicarage closet, and why does coffee play such an important part in his quest to win the largest marrow contest? God only knows, but is all we discover about this man of the cloth enough to send Malcolm to his maker? Alex Brimelow dons the dog collar and plays out a quite trendy vicar.

Miss Parmenter is the spinster of the Parish, and a budding Miss Marple. She loves the Inspector Brady character and TV series and has learnt all that she knows about being an armchair sleuth from watching Ray Martin in the role of Brady. Michelle Bellamy is quite meticulous as Violet Parmenter as she dissects everything to do with the crime, proving that you can pick up lots of useful tips by watching TV.

The "star" of the fete is Ray Martin, a fictional TV detective Inspector Brady, who has been hired to open the fete and judge the local produce. When the dastardly deed has been committed, everyone looks to the TV detective to solve the mystery. Have they forgotten that he is only a TV actor, and not really a detective? Can he solve the mystery without a script? Wayne Hill plays the TV celebrity, who grasps every opportunity to line his own pockets, charging a fiver for a selfie, I ask you, but is he, and his biggest fan Violet, able to solve the riddle of the deathly fete? Or should that be fate?

Directed by Chris Gardner, who also designed the incredibly good set. It's all set inside a marquee, where you can also see outside to where the village green will be. There are tables of everything that you'd expect at one of these fetes, jam, vegetables, cakes, the raffle stall, and I have it on very good authority that everything, well almost everything, on show is edible. 

The amount of props for this production is massive. The set dressing is also spot on. The success of both these areas are thanks Jeff Casterton, Carol Hill, Glynis Hunt, Gail Tomlinson, Linda Whitehurst and Charlotte Hukin.

There's also the speaker that relays the fete announcements as well as the typical brass band style music that you'd expect to hear at one of these village occasions, all making for a very realistic village green style preservation society do.

The marrow though is massive! What a big one! I've never seen one as big as that before! 

Costumes are also sourced by Charlotte Hukin.

Sound design by David Goatham. We get all the usual sounds that we'd expect from an outdoor gathering including the opening speech over a crackling P.A. system, transporting everyone to a sunny Thornton village green on a Saturday afternoon. Nice choice of music to top and tail the play, plus a brass band style that ran through the music in the interval.

Lighting design by Peter Hodgkinson, so I knew that this area of the production/technical team was also in very safe hands. Some nice effects used near to the end of the play.

This is another really fun play. A play that I've not seen before, and a play that I failed to guess whodunnit. There are some fun characters here and some interesting motives, some more believable than others, but the whole story is great fun whether you guess whodunnit or not. Another thing is that Bonington Theatre was packed for the opening night of the play, which is always a great sign at the start of any play's run.

"A Fete Worse Than Death" is at Bonington Theatre until Saturday 18 January, but get your tickets quick as I was advised that there are only single seat tickets now available for the rest of the week.