Calling all StageSiders, welcome back to another review here at StageSideUK! This time around we are talking about Middle Ground Theatre Company’s new tour of The Signalman, which took to the Darlington Hippodrome stage this week! So settle in, this ones a spooky one!
Disclaimer: we were gifted two free tickets in exchange for an honest review of the show.
“Set in 1880, this is the exquisitely unnerving tale of a tormented signalman who is haunted by visions of impending disaster on his isolated stretch of line. Can a well meaning traveler, who chances upon the lonely signal box while out walking, calm the man’s fears before he spirals into self destruction?” (Taken from Middle Ground Theatre Company’s site)
Right out the gate I will say Middle Ground Theatre Company’s new tour of The Signalman is a thrilling delight. The show contains all the atmosphere, tension and traditional storytelling you would expect from a Dickens ghost story without playing too much with modern spectacle. From the moment the lights dim, the auditorium is plunged into that unmistakable chill of classic Dickensian unease. In Act One in particular, the suspense is so well brewed, you could practically feel our collective breath being held. The audience at the Hippodrome were engrossed and utterly hooked, and the tension was strong enough to cut with a knife.
John Burton stands out in this piece hitting the loud parts at the right time, and acting with sensitivity in others. The pacing is right, the gestures are spot on and I was completely hooked in the performance.
Chris Walker gave a strong performance as The Signalman, creating that bond with the audience and taking us through the frights with a strong pace.
Whilst Bruce Chattan, James Morley and Adam Mort aren’t on stage for long, their parts are played well, with strength and commitment and their acting is awesome to see!
Visually, this production leans beautifully into the eerie stillness of the setting. When that curtain rises for the first time and you see the signal box and the train line, you can’t help but be impressed. Even the couple next to me let out a gasp.
The projection received mixed reviews with some of the audience gasping, and some of the audience chuckling. I thought the projection worked and did its job as it was meant to.
The slow pacing, the shadows, the uneasy pauses, all combine to create a creeping sense of dread that works superbly. It’s a show that understands what it does well, and really plays with it.
Act Two, however, did lose some of that razor-sharp intensity. There were a handful of mumbled or repeated lines on the night, and a couple of performances tipped a little too far towards melodrama. These moments didn’t ruin the show at all, they simply softened the impact of the carefully built suspense and slightly disrupting the otherwise excellent pacing.
The piece remains a stirring and atmospheric thriller, moody, and wonderfully spooky in all the right places. There’s something quite satisfying in seeing this kind of theatrical storytelling treated with seriousness and style.
Suspenseful, intriguing, and at times delightfully unnerving, a frightfully fun piece of theatre, especially for those who love a traditional ghost story.
Accessibility
The show contains loud sudden noises and some elements that are intended to scare or shock such as props falling etc. The piece works well though and in my opinion the elements that are there, work and are not simply there to be scary or intense.
Value for money
Tickets for the show start at £16 and go up to £40 each. I think the seats at around the £35 are a fair price for the show. You get just under 2 hours of great theatre and some really great visual elements too! I love this show and would happily see it again at that £35 price point.
Overall The Signalman gets 4 stars from StageSideUK. The show is spooky, scary and a master at suspence, but the second act could run smoother.
Have your say!
Have you seen The Signalman? What did you think? Let me know in the comments and let’s get a discussion going.
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We saw this in Chester last night, the set was fabulous, unless you were sat near the front whereby the height of the stage and the height of the signal box felt like we were looking up at a drama at the top of a lighthouse and missed any detail of the signalbox interior, Indeed we weren’t even aware of the rails until we stood up at the end, the costumes first class, the special effects excellent, ok I can understand why some may not have liked the projection but it served its purpose well. But these were all niggling pernickety nit picks of a truly well thought out and beautiful production marred by poor sightlines from the front row seats However the whole production was destroyed by John Burton’s portrayal of the narrator/protagonist of the piece, who appeared to have no unerstanding of the lines, no emotionall engagement , no ability to make us believe he was thinking of the words for the first time and just declaimed and rattled them out like a machine gun or a typewriter, perhaps he had a train to catch? some of his reactions were comical, from his shudder to his bizarre way of putting on his hat. It was such a disappointment to see what could have been as good a piece of chilling theatre as The woman in black brought down by one actor.