Imagine… Dr Beeching stranded at a lonely railway station with an interesting set of fellow travellers, including a medium

Kintbury Players: The Haunting of Dr Beeching

at Coronation Hall, Kintbury

from Thursday, October 24 to Saturday 26

Review by DEREK ANSELL

THIS was an original and ingenious idea for a new play.

Dr Beeching and his wife are stranded at a remote country railway station in 1952. There they meet four other passengers and a mysterious medium named Elvira.

Beeching, his wife and the other four are based on real people.

There is one other requirement of the four people and that is they all die later in 1952. And they all did. If you are with me so far you are doing well!

This sets it up for the last act, the epilogue in 1965, when Beeching returns to the station. Is he about to be haunted by the other four? That is the basic story line, and this production set off very well indeed.

A first-class set was augmented by clever lighting and sound effects. A particularly strong addition was a window frame with a television screen behind it showing the train actually arriving at the platform.

After the nostalgic sound of Nat King Cole singing, the characters began to arrive at the station.

Steven Cook played Beeching as pompous and blustering effectively, but he could have learned his lines better. He wasn’t the only culprit either.

Kathryn Bowers gave a subdued performance as Mrs Beeching, but grew into the part as the action proceeded.

Roy Hutchings and Nick Batten played a neat double act as the stationmaster and his assistant.

Nick Emberlin was a cocky, Jack-the-lad type in this reading of Jack Parsons.

Julian Dickins was most impressive as Elvira Bucatini, in drag.... the name Elvira doubtless taken from the character in Noel Coward’s Blythe Spirit, but fortunately the writer stopped there. This was no Madam Arcati, more a combination of Julian Clary and Tom Allen. Julian’s facial expressions spoke volumes.

Natalie Riley played Gertrude Lawrence as an over-the-top actress and Ed Forde played racing driver John Cobb.

Natalie Stephenson managed a realistic foreign accent as Christine Granville aka Krystna Skarbek who turned out to be a Polish spy and later a British agent.

This was a fascinating production on several levels.

The real-life characters portrayed really did die in strange circumstances, although I can’t answer for their ghostly debuts.

Generally, the production moved along at a natural pace and the special effects worked extremely well thanks to Phil Day and assistants, and author Julie Carlisle who directed her own play skilfully.

We even caught a glimpse of Norman Bates wielding a knife through the window, Psycho music included, along with a few other zombie-like creatures.

...And it will be some time before I forget the sight of Julian Dickins as Madam Elvira in full drag.