“The Girl on the Train” disembarked at the Apollo Theatre tonight, and will be playing till next Saturday (14th). I was lucky enough to be treated to a stage adaptation of the best selling novel by Paula Hawkins, later a 2016 Hollywood film starring Emily Blunt.
The story follows alcoholic divorcée Rachel Watson (played with grit and sincerity by Hebe Gregory here), waking up injured and struggling to remember flashes of an event featuring a woman she feels she is friends with. What follows is a slow-putting together of circumstances, as Rachel. with the aid of Inspector Gaskill (a role Fiona Gwinnett breezes on through with conviction) begins to discover the true murky nature of what happened to her supposed friend Megan Hipwell.
Now given this is a dark thriller with an unreliable narrator, and includes themes such as domestic abuse, infanticide, mental abuse and alcoholism, props first must be given to the Apollo for bringing such relevant societal issues to an Island theatre audience. Also congratulations to the theatre for giving the female leads the opportunity to play roles that are not the usual badly written stereotypes lacking agency. The cast tackled and performed the show as truthfully as they could, and praise must be given to the director Helen Reading for supporting her cast with a fairly minimal and uncluttered stage design to showcase their acting.
Marie Hickman gave the standout emotional moment of the play with a particularly heartfelt soliloquy as Megan to psychiatrist Kamal (Garry Smith bringing a calm presence here). Holly Squires played Anna effectively and showed emotion in the climax of the show. Jake Harrison was a suitably fiery presence as Scott and Phillip Griffiths played Tom, a very complex and interesting character, with skill and verve.
The cast as a whole really tried to flesh out these characters and make them three dimensional human beings.
A well done to the tech team and sound design for creating projections and sound recordings that kept the audience immersed in the world of the play, even when the odd slightly fake doll slightly pulled them out of it. It was a shame more of this excellent work with sound, image and acting on stage wasn’t done towards the start of the play to set the “tone” of the show in stone going forward, as at several very emotional parts, some in the audience I was sat in seemed to think it was time to laugh.
To describe the play further would be to risk spoilers, so as I know many will be wanting to get their tickets for this soon, I shall keep this review spoiler-free and hope you get to see this production before it pulls out the station once more.
‘The Girl on the Train’ runs from Tuesday to Saturday next week (10th-14th September) and tickets are available from WHAT’S ON | Apollo Theatre (apollo-theatre.org.uk)
Reviewed by Olly Fry
IWtheatre 