The Girl on the Train. By Paula Hawkins and the Dreamworks Film. Adapted by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel.
Directed
and designed by Chris Baldock. Assistant Director Dale Rheynolds. Lighting
Design by Rhiley Winnett and Chris Baldock. Costumes and Props Chris Baldock,
Dale Rheynolds and the Cast. Intimacy Consultant Steph Evans. The Studio.
Mockingbird Theatre Company and Acting Studio. August 2026.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
Morgan Heath Williams as Rachel
in The Girl on the Train
An air of silent expectation
hangs over the audience in the intimate Mockingbird Studio. I cannot remember a
time when not a word has been spoken as the audience entered to take their
seats for Mockingbird’s production of Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel’s stage
adaptation of Paula Hawkin’s and Dreamwork Film’s The Girl on the Train.
Director/Designer Chris Baldock has once again demonstrated his visionary
theatrical insight in creating an ambience that arouses intense anticipation, intriguing
mystery and gripping involvement in the drama.
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| Susie Todd as Megan and Timothy Cusack as Scott in The Girl on the Train |
Four actors are seated motionless on the octagonal set design. They nurse alcoholic and non alcoholic beverages on their laps, waiting for the performance to begin. It is an auspicious beginning to a drama that captures the suspense and mystery of the film’s adaptation. Baldock has carefully and meticulously fashioned the drama for the intimate theatre in the round, ensuring that we are constantly offered shifting perspectives on the characters’ actions and motives.
A video of a moving train
surrounds the space. The sound of shattering glass jerks the audience into
attention and in the middle of the space the figure of Rachel Watson (Morgan
Heath-Williams) can be seen sprawled bleeding from a cut on the forehead. And
so the thrilling crime drama begins in a haze of fragmented memory, random
accusation and the bewildering search for the truth.
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| Paul Sweeney as D.I.Gaskill in The Girl on the Train |
Megan Hipwell (Susie Todd) has disappeared. Watson’s alcoholic imaginings draw her into the mystery. She becomes both victim and suspect, determined to uncover the truth through her encounters with her former husband Tom (Robert Weardon), his current wife Anna (Sabrina Fu), Megan’s husband Scott (Timothy Cusack) and Megan’s therapist (Ankush Singh Khanchi). At the same time D.I. Gaskill (Paul Sweeney) is on the case as suspicion builds as Watson finds herself both the accused and the accuser.
Like all good crime fiction,
investigation is as much about the characters and their relationships as it is
about the complex and convoluted quest to uncover the truth. Dark truths about
Rachel’s reliance on alcohol, the secret aspect of Scott and Megan’s marriage,
Megan’s tragic past, Tom’s tormented continuing love of Rachel, Anna’s spiteful
resentment of Tom and Anna’s past and Kamal’s guilt all contribute to a
portrait of the frailty of human nature. Wagstaff and Abel’s characters are all
complicit in the drama but it is up to director Baldock and his cast to
construct a labyrinth of possibilities that will lure their audience on a
search, not only for the ultimate truth, but also for a deeper understanding of
the human condition in all its complexity and frailty.
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| Morgan Heath Williams as Rachel Watson, the girl on the train |
Baldock has chosen an outstanding cast. In the eponymous role of the girl on the train, Morgan Heath Williams gives an extraordinary performance as Rachel Watson, charting the agony of alcoholic stupor to crushing self-doubt, loneliness, and eventually alcohol free and fervent determination until she arrives at redemption with the revelation of Megan’s murderer. Heath Williams is an actor to watch and I look forward to her appearance in future productions.
Any actor assuming a central role
is only as good as the ensemble that supports him or her and commands a
performance as truthful as the others. Heath Williams has an excellent
supporting cast, each asserting their individuality in this suspenseful and
gripping drama. There is a sense of false motive in Weardon’s performance of
Tom. It is a performance that you can’t quite put your finger on but you know
that there is something not quite right. Cusack’s Scott surprises with an
unexpected streak of violence emerging from a conservative presence. Todd’s
Megan evokes both mystery and empathy through effective stillness and ghostly essence.
Fu exudes the very resentment and anger of the second wife in a brittle and expressive performance that
reconciles her relationship with Rachel as the drama reaches its finale. Kanchi’s professional
concern and reserve hides the discomfort of inappropriate conduct with Megan as
observed from the train by Rachel. It is a subtle study of private shame. There
is something entirely endearing about Paul Sweeney’s Detective Inspector
Gaskill. It is the cat and mouse lark of a man who knows the art of peeling
back the false truth to reach the real truth with a grin. Sweeney’s gumshoe
would make an excellent series copper.
Baldock’s use of the space is an
excellent example of stage choreography, keeping the audience continually
engaged and absorbed in the action and behaviour of the characters. It comes as
no surprise that the season should be sold out, and I was only able to see the
production on its penultimate night. There is no point in me saying “Don’t miss
this outstanding production” but there is every point in commending Mockingbird
on another first-rate night at the theatre. Lucky are they who could say they
saw it. For those that didn’t, there is always the film. But for my part I
prefer the part that live theatre can play in encouraging audiences to look
beyond the plot and view the inner world
of the characters upon the stage.
