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From the Croydon Advertiser - 31st of March, 2006
Review by Diana Eccleston
*** - 3 stars
This old pot-boiler by Arnold Ridley - best known as Private Godfrey in Dad's Army - has been a mainstay of the amateur theatre world for many years, but it is always good to have a chuckle at it again.
ATG were doing well with it on their opening night last week, with a polished first half. But unfortunately the second half fell a bit flat due to faltering over lines and slow picking up of cues, just when the tension was supposed to be at its tightest.
It's a great comedy thriller about a collection of people, who late on night in 1925, get stranded in an isolated station waiting room after one of them has pulled the train's emergency chord.
The station master tells them that they can't stay the night and regales them with spine-chilling tales about a ghost train and a spectre who walks the platform with a red lamp in his hand singing Rock of Ages.
Yes, it's all pretty potty stuff, which is why, all these years after it was written, the piece now needs to be played with a huge zest for the comedy of the characters. This happened in Ashley Dunn's production to some extent, though I would like to have seen more differentiation between the women in particular.
Jeremy Nicholls was terrific as Teddie Deakin, the sily ass who loses his hat, but who, we later discover, had a very good reason for doing so.
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