Earlier than the play begins, a tiny LNER InterCity zips in entrance of us. Our eyes observe it from one facet of the stage to the opposite. Miniatures fascinate, and the prepare reminds us of the attraction.
It implies that after we meet the outdated boys of the Market Deeping mannequin railway membership, celebrating a second victory in Stamford’s regional exhibition, we’re sympathetic to their area of interest passion. Sure, it could be eccentric to spend years perfecting an OO scale motive energy depot, however have a look at the element and gasp!
William Ivory’s comedy is impressed by a traumatic incident in 2019, when 4 youths broke into the college corridor at Welland academy solely to discover a mannequin railway exhibition. For fun, they trashed it.
Combing the camaraderie of Calendar Ladies with the dodderiness of Dad’s Military, the playwright makes no secret of the lads’s nerdy obsession, however establishes their quiet dedication in a means that reveals the life-shattering affect of the vandalism. So as to add gravitas to the character comedy, Ivory units the story in its Brexit context, with Theresa Could resigning and Boris Johnson promising to take again management. The place ought to these fanatics, whose motto is “Pullmans not politics”, draw the road between nostalgia for steam engines and suspicion of foreigners? If the act of constructing a reproduction railway feels peculiarly British, a unusual throwback to a Boy’s Personal previous, what likelihood of ushering in modernity to this Lincolnshire market city?
If the argument is just too weighty for this mild story to hold, the wonderful solid by no means let it appear so. Below the route of Adam Penford, the seven males, plus Lucy Briers because the put-upon membership secretary and the catalyst for his or her emotional articulacy, paint an endearing portrait of individuals bonding by means of a shared ardour.
Veteran performers all, they know how you can land a joke, whether or not it’s Adrian Scarborough because the chairman clinging rigidly to the rule ebook, Paul Bradley because the old-timer mixing up his meds, or Babatunde Aléshé as the brand new boy who faces clean stares when he explains they’ve gone viral on the socials.
The undulations are minor, however the play is an N gauge pleasure.
At Nottingham Playhouse till 25 July.
