Theatre Column
Full steam ahead
Chris Ford explains how he and Chris Cade put
drama on the rails at the National Railway Museum
IF someone is sitting openmouthed
with interest at the front
and "a sage" is nodding in
agreement at the back, then Chris
Ford knows he's got another
winning piece of theatre for the
National Railway Museum (NRM) at
York.
Since 1991, he and fellow educational
theatre MA Chris Cade have brought
railway history to life with short plays
for the tens of thousands of museumgoers.
And, by chance, the theatre
company, called Platform 4 and
launched by the duo while on a visit to
the NRM, presents its 50th production
as part of a nine-day gala marking the
40th year since steam engines were
withdrawn from mainline services.
Asked about the latest 20-30 minute
drama, which NRM visitors watch for
free, called Out Of Steam, Ford replies:
"The first thing is that we're creating
plays for a very particular venue and
you need a story that's going to be
entertaining and grab people, but at the
same time it has to help people
understand a little bit more than they
did. If you veer in one direction you
could finish up with a wonderfully
entertaining but thin piece which
doesn't teach people anything, but too
far in the other direction you get
something dry as dust and an
illustrated lecture.
"What you're looking for is when
you'll have people at the front hearing
the story for the first time, who might
be children or adults, and because our
stories are breath-taking you will
literally have the open-mouthed
listener. On the back row, and they
always are at the back, you'll have
someone who knows the story and
might have been in the original event
you're portraying and they'll stand at
the back just gently nodding away,
letting you know you're right. If you get
both of those you've hit that balance
and a dynamic piece of museum
theatre."
Ford has switched from performing to
researching and writing and has used
the personal reminisces of drivers,
firemen and cleaners from the last
steam sheds to close in Lancashire in
1968 to create the latest play.
"Looking back now there's a tendency
to be a bit over-romantic. I'm a fireman
with the Keighley and Worth Valley
Railway and even now kids think of it
as a dream job. Even as a volunteer
when underneath clearing out an
ashpan in the middle of winter it's
basically a dirty, cold and dangerous
kind of job. These guys on the railway
were living this day in and day out. So
when it did come to the end of steam
there was a range of feelings with some
having had a belly-full of the dirt, grim
and grit and welcoming a warm diesel
cab," he adds.
THE play highlights the fact that
the railway industry was finding it
hard to recruit and retain people
because there was plenty of cleaner and
better paid work around.
On the potential audience, Ford
reminds me that for many years the
NRM has worked to make itself a family
venue which he says is reflected in the
mix of genders and experience of onlookers
who come along to the shows.
Skipton-based Chris Ford and Chris
Cade were joined by Jo Kemp in the
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mid-90s as they began a series of works
which highlighted female involvement
in the railways - such as the World War
Two drama Oh Mrs Porter. Now the
company has seven actors, three male
and four female, to portray everything
from rail disasters to royal visits.
Ford recalls that even the name of the
company came from the NRM.
He and Cade visited the museum to
see the much-heralded sound effects of
railway life in action and felt that the
museum's would benefit from the
creation of historic drama - quite a new
idea in 1990.
"We were sat in the Brief Encounter
café, which is still there, and we literally
wrote the ideas down on a paper napkin
and needed a name and we looked up
and above our heads was a big sign
which said Platform 4," says Ford who
recalls the first performance as
"thrilling and terrifying all at the same
time, but it was clear, strangely, right
from the first performance that the
audience got a lot out of it and it
worked. This idea of fusing theatre, the
museum and story-telling absolutely
worked. It was dynamite really because
a hugely significant part of our history
is the railways and we're working in a
national venue which is the guardian of
railway stories.
"On the very first preview
performance of Out Of Steam we had
two guys there who were from the
Lancashire steam shed who came to us
afterwards and one said that's my story,
how did you know? The hairs were
standing up on the back of my neck
because I was re-living events from 40
years ago.'"
9:19am Saturday 26th April 2008
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