A thriller that never runs out of steam

REVIEW: The Girl on the Train – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, June 17 to Saturday, June 21).

Showtime! stars rating: * * * * *

HOW much do we really know about the people we work with, those neighbours, friends… that smiling, happy couple, the one we see every day on the commuter train?

We nod. We smile. Perhaps exchange a few pleasantries. And they do the same. After a while, the feeling is that we know them. All is well with the world.

Except we don’t. Maybe not the faintest idea about either of them, in fact.

Rachel Watson is probably typical of most of us. She watches the couple through the train window and imagines the reality of their lives… young, in love, not a care in the world. Wish I could be like them.

Then one day, the woman’s not there. Disappeared, gone… without a trace or explanation. And this soon triggers a police hunt that has all the indications of not ending well.

Then, as the coppers start asking questions, a torch is in turn shone into the darkest recesses of Rachel’s mind. Her self-imposed domestic chaos, personified by a permanently unmade bed that would be the envy of Tracey Emin, the empty wine and vodka bottles littering the place. So. What’s going on with her?

Laura Whitmore will be familiar to many of us, thanks to her amazingly prolific acting, TV and radio output, and in the role of Rachel Watson she turns in a performance that is unrelentingly commanding right from the word go.

To say she excels gets nowhere near. She delivers some truly electrifying theatre and never falters for one single moment.

After all, this is of course a modern whodunnit, and so the audience is kept guessing, perched on the edges of their seats, right up until the final seconds.

Edward Harrison as Tom Watson has all the appearances of a man in control of events, but don’t be fooled. And Samuel Collings as Scott, partner of missing woman Megan Hipwell, manages to chuck in more red herrings than one might observe at feeding time in the London Zoo seals enclosure.

Meanwhile, Freya Parks’ missing woman periodically flits ghost-like across the stage, defying the small print of mortality, as if to remind us that one’s guilty secrets will inevitably find us out in the end.

Based on the best-selling novel by Paula Hawkins, the edgy narrative is powered along by Adam Wiltshire’s minimalistic set, Jack Knowles’ lighting, and Elizabeth Purnell’s explosive sound effects.

For example, the sheer violence and sensory shock of the trains speeding through a station will be familiar to all who have ever absent-mindedly ventured that little bit too close to the edge of the platform.

This explosiveness subtly mirrors the underlying menace of the play, perhaps pointing to the fate of the missing Megan, like a mailed fist full in the face that hints at the disturbing revelations to come.

There’s no doubt that director Loveday Ingram has done us all proud with this nerve-jangler of a thriller, and so it is therefore firmly recommended as this week’s Malvern Theatres shot in the arm for stage junkies everywhere.