New stage version of The Railway Children steams into Yorkshire where film was shot

The public adored it; the critics raved about it. Not bad for the adaptation (by the skilful dramatist Mike Kenny) of a book that had been published back in 1905, first as a serialised story in a leading magazine, and then as a book. That best-selling book, by E Nesbit, has never been out of print since.

Not only that, there had already been iconic TV and film versions, which no-one believed could have been surpassed in their popularity. What could possibly top the tear-jerk factor of 1970’s movie The Railway Children, with star names such as Bernard Cribbins and Lionel Jeffries, and the magically tear-jerking moment when Jenny Agutter runs along a station platform, exclaiming “My daddy, my daddy!” as she spots her father alighting from a carriage wreathed in steam.

But it wasn’t until the new stage version by Kenny, and directed by Damian Cruden, came along, that it became a journey that anyone who saw it will ever forget. To call Edith Nesbit, the author ‘prolific’ is a masterpiece of understatement. This redoubtable lady wrote everything – books, pamphlets, poetry, everything from fiction to fact and opinion. She was also a political activist, and she counted George Bernard Shaw and H G Wells among her friends. Probably her most famous work, The Railway Children was inspired by Paul, one of her sons, who had taken up the relatively new hobby of trains-spotting, and who could often be found on one of the platforms of her local station Grove Park, in south-east London. A central theme of the story is that the husband of the family (who had a key position at the Foreign Office) has been falsely accused of spying, and imprisoned. Roberta (nicknamed Bobbie) Peter and Phyllis and their mother move to Yorkshire, and lease a house, The Three Chimneys – which is conveniently near a railway line, and a station called Oakwood.

There is indeed an Oakwood station, and it was first built in 1867, on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, a small local company which was later absorbed into the mighty Midland Railway, then into the London Midland and Scottish, and then, on nationalisation, into British Railways. It closed in 1962, and then was re-opened by the enthusiasts of the new Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, and then it became one of the county’s top tourist attractions. It cannot have hindered publicity that the 1970 movie The Railway Children was filmed here – an international box office success. The strange thing is that there is no record at all of E Nesbit ever having set foot in Oakwood, nor any part of the KWVR line of track, or indeed, in Yorkshire itself. Everything in the book is a product of her vivid imagination. Now, in the new production of The Railway Children, Damian Cruden and his team have taken the story even further – Kenny’s adaptation (which opened this week) is performed in a special auditorium constructed at Oxenhope, while audiences will have the chance to enhance their experience of the glorious age of steam by travelling up to the ‘theatre’ in vintage carriages hauled by a locomotive in full steam. Once aboard, they can listen to an immersive soundtrack, capturing the sounds and atmosphere of railway’s golden years. There are nearly 70 performances in the run.

Cruden – who for many successful years was Artistic Director of York’s Theatre Royal (he’s now in the same role at Alnwick Playhouse in Northumberland) – recalls with a smile that the first production of The Railway Children wasn’t the easiest of projects. “We’re talking about the early 2000s here,” he recalls. “I honestly don’t recall where the idea came from, but I realised that we needed to do something big, something which grabbed the attention of the public, and that Mike Kenny was precisely the right man to have as the writer. We thought about a lot of things, and then the idea occurred to us – The Railway Children, but with a real railway. The obvious people to go to were the National Rail Museum, but they had absolutely no experience of putting on any performances at the venue, none whatsoever. So, it was an exceptionally long two years of coaxing, and gentle persuasion, and they had to be eased into believing that this might well be watershed theatre - and great box office.” Cruden and Kenny were not wrong. The show was a sell-out in 2008 and in the following year, and then it ‘went on tour’, to Waterloo Station in London, and then, incredibly, to the John Street Roundhouse in Toronto, Canada.

One of the members of the cast in those early days was much-loved Yorkshire actor Martin Barrass, who was to originate the role of Mr Perks. “It was a gift of a part,” he recalls, “one of the best roles I’ve ever had in my career, a sheer joy to perform nightly, to be there, when that amazing engine glided in to the space between the platforms, looking absolutely majestic, not that really was something special. And the added joy was just to hear the gasps of the audience as they watched it – I have never ever heard anything like that in a performance space before. There was awe, there was surprise, and above all, there was a tidal wave of unadulterated love, there’s no other word for it. I cannot imagine how this new production will affect people, but I believe that it’ll be an event for every single member of the audience, and one that they will never forget. They’ll be on the service taking there, and back to Keighley. Real train, real steam, real motion, the genuine article. The total ‘immersive performance’ to end all others.”

Real life husband and wife Graeme Hawley and Elianne Boyne play Mr and Mrs Perks in the KWVR production. “We first met, many years ago, in a Manchester Library Theatre production of Schweik in the Second World War, and that is about as far from The Railway Children as the imagination can stretch. In fact, this is the first time that we’ve been together in a stage play since then. We love what Mike and Damian have done with Nesbit’s original, because they are completely faithful to the story, and they’re presenting it as seen through the eyes of the children, each of whom is of that pivotal age, almost adults – especially Bobbie. There are dark moments, but its all very innocent, and completely optimistic. All of us have had a childhood, but all of us will come to the play in a specific way – people crave live and truthful connections, and here we have them in full.” Farah Asraf plays Bobbie. “I was an avid reader as a child – we had moved to Pakistan at the time – and I devoured anything and everything, including The Railway Children. For me, it was a vivid escape, and I believe that it will be for our audiences as well. It’s a classic English story, but the themes are universal and timeless – kindness, companionship, non-judgemental friendship.”

Everything has been meticulously planned by the KWVR. “There’s no public parking at Oxenhope,” says Noel Hartley, the line’s Business and Operations Manager, “so everything starts in Keighley – and you must book in advance. It gives a whole new meaning to ‘park and ride.’ The new performance space seats 500, so our services – pulled by two veteran locos – will ply up and down for the performances. We think of The Railway Children as ‘our brand,’ it was filmed here, they belong here, and, since it is repeated so often, particularly at Christmas, we are always reaching new audiences. It’s unique in its strength of identity.”

Until September 7. Bookings and information at bradford2025.co.uk/event/the-railway-children/