This is the second ‘straight’ drama in succession I have seen at the wonderful Leeds Grand Theatre, which failed to live up to expectations. I saw this play at Leeds Playhouse some years ago and, whilst I don’t remember it very well – appropriate given the subject, I can’t recall it being this disappointing.
Laura Whitmore as Rachel Watson
The work is based on the mega-selling book of the same name, by Paula Hawkins, which has also been turned into a highly successful film. I believe that those concerned should have left it at that and spent their time counting the money rather than going for the treble. It was wrong on so many levels, the acting was stilted, the design overly pretentious, the adaptation and direction just plain baffling. There should also have been at least one character with whom the audience could have a modicum of empathy. The nearest we got was Megan, the victim of the crime depicted, and even then it was because of an incident which occurred whilst she was in her mid-teens.
Left to right: Zena Carswell as Anna, Edward Harrison as Tom, Laura Whitmore as Rachel and Daniel Burke as Kamal.
The story is of a woman who takes the train, ostensibly to go to work each morning and invariably sees a couple through their window. One day she notices that the woman is with another man and, after that, she disappears altogether. The window is not random, as it it two doors away from the house in which she used to live with her ex-husband, who left her, due to her heavy drinking, for another woman, Anna, whom he married and has a child. She, Rachel, has always envied the lifestyle of the target couple, Scott and Megan, and become a stalker of both them as well as her ex. She is also still hitting the bottle, has lost her job and is imminently about to be evicted. The alcohol, stress and warped interest in the other characters, means that her version of the truth does not necessarily coincide with actuality, thus leading the policeman investigating Megan’s disappearance, DI Gaskill, to put her at the top of his list of suspects when her body is discovered. This would have been fine, except that, when the cadaver is being examined at the crime scene by the Inspector, he takes Rachel with him and lets her loose amongst the evidence, even kitting her out in the obligatory white oversuit. I also thought that his use of the word ‘autopsy’ rather than ‘post mortem’ was a bit jarring, more CSI than CID.
Laura Whitmore as Rachel and Freya Parks as Megan
Rachel has been conducting her own enquiries, as she woke up from an alcohol-induced sleep on the morning after Megan’s disappearance, with blood on her clothes. She lies about her identity in order to get an appointment with Megan’s therapist, Kamal, who, after a couple of sessions, admits to having had an affair with her. She then repeats her deception in order to talk to Scott, when she spills the beans about the tryst. Scott is so distraught that he and Rachel begin to indulge in a bout of revenge sex, which is thwarted when, who should call at the flat but Tom, much to the embarrassment of all three of them.
I will not reveal the denouement in case you want to see it, but you will have probably worked it out by midway through Act 2.
Paul McEwan as DI Gaskill. Photograph Pamala Raith
Obviously, in order to have sold 21 million copies between publication in 2015 and 2021, the novel must be more than fairly good, but, as you will have gathered, I found the play less so.
Not only was the acting lacking in any sort of nuance, it didn’t illustrate the vast majority of the story, which was revealed by the characters relating the events to each other rather than portraying them.
Laura Whitmore as Rachel – yes, she is in just about every scene – and Samuel Collins as Scott
The set was ‘pretentious spartan’, relying on semi abstract back projections and odd bits of furniture. There was a series of fluorescent tubes at the back, four of which formed either a frame with a translucent cloth, showing a muted vision of a character behind, or a box, which revolved whilst Rachel was in it, seemingly to illustrate her being trapped in a version of a hamster’s wheel. I have also never seen a set of smoke machines deployed so liberally throughout the whole of a play.
Laura Whitmore as Rachel in the hamster wheel.
The Ensemble actors were Oliver Joseph Brooke and Ellie Gallimore
The Girl On The Train, adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel and Directed by Loveday Ingram, is at Leeds Grand Theatre until 5th July. For more information and to book please go to https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/the-girl-on-the-train-2025/
For details of other Leeds Heritage Theatre productions it is https://leedsheritagetheatres.com/whats-on/
Tyke It To The Limit 