CityLife

The Signalman

The Signalman
Buxton Opera House
October 24, 2009

CHARLES Dickens’ classic ghost story earned honourable mention in an episode of Doctor Who as the time-traveller’s favourite yarn.

Here, another odd traveller arrives unexpectedly at a remote Derbyshire railway cutting on a dark and windy night in 1860 to find a solitary signalman in his isolated signal box. An express train screeches through the dark station, leaving a cloud of steam.

The signalman is persuaded to tell the stranger of a troubled tale of a disaster that haunts him. Or is he himself a ghost?

He tells of a fearful apparition that appears at the mouth of the tunnel behind the signal box – a sure sign of another impending disaster. But who will be the victim?

Good train effects

In turn, the traveller tells his own haunted tale of lost love and a train crash – and his real reason for visiting this station.

It’s a good old-fashioned spooky tale, brought suspensefully to life in this new play by John Goodrum, who also directs, for Rumpus Theatre. He tells it straight, as the two men try to build the atmosphere, with the help of shadowy lighting, good train effects and the use of suitably creepy music by Lutoslawski.

Keith Drinkel in the title role and Mark Homer as the visitor play off each other adroitly, but some of the dialogue is stilted and the play never quite delivers its spine-chilling promise, though it’s diverting enough and worth reviving.

Clearly, there is new interest in it – a different version comes to The Lowry next month.

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