Mike Kenny's imaginative stage adaptation of E. Nesbit's much-loved children's classic created a huge stir and broke box office records when it was first staged – with real steam trains - at the National Railway Museum in York and then at Waterloo Station in London.

Famously filmed, this story of a prosperous Edwardian family - a mother and three children - forced into near-penury in the rural north of England captures the anxieties and exhilarations of childhood with great tenderness and insight.

As Mike Kenny says of his remarkably faithful adaptation, 'You don't need a real train to perform this play… the most powerful prop is the imagination of the audience, the most effective tool the skill of the actors.'

Review Quotes

'The three lead actors manage to do two very difficult things: be adults playing children and three characters working together as one. When it’s done this well, you never doubt the achievement'

'In these dark days, with winter approaching in more senses than one, it is nice to feast on something wholesome, something that helps restore one’s faith in fundamental human goodness.'

For more information about this production please contact the director via the email address artisticdirector@criteriontheatre.co.uk

This amateur production of 'The Railway Children' is presented by arrangement with Nick Hern Books.