Running out of steam

Of all the films that merit a second life on the stage, The Titfield Thunderbolt surely comes near the bottom of the list.

One of the least celebrated - and least amusing - of the Ealing Comedies, it involves much shunting of heavy machinery and a pivotal clash between a steamroller and an engine. Just the sort of thing that works well in the theatre.

On a set eerily reminiscent of Postman Pat's Greendale, designer Rodney Ford tackles the fact that it's all about, well, trains, with ingenuity. Yet clever as the pedal vehicles and miniature cut-outs are, there is an inevitable limit to what one can achieve with brightly painted cardboard and actors bobbing around to convey locomotion.

It might just have worked, if only adaptor Philip Goulding hadn't inserted a succession of glaring linguistic anachronisms into TEB Clarke's screenplay, about a group of villagers who fight to prevent the closure of "the oldest surviving branch line in the world".

The charm of the original, if such it can be described, comes from the curious glance it affords at the hierarchical Britain of 1952. Here, this crucial sense of postwar period is largely absent.

A mere five actors play umpteen parts each in Bob Carlton's production, which leads to much pantomime-like business with costume changes. Kate O'Mara struggles hopelessly with the newly created central role of Lady Edna Chesterford and no one else fares much better.

Unlike the ultimately triumphant titular train, this piece runs fatally out of steam.

The Titfield Thunderbolt