Loveday Ingram’s production of The Girl on the Train has returned to Brighton this week for a four-night run. A slick adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ best-selling psychological thriller, it had a box-office record-breaking tour in 2019, and I had the pleasure of seeing it on Thursday at the Theatre Royal.
Rachel Watson is drawn into a search for a missing woman whose life she has been longingly spying on from a commuter train. The mystery is as much Rachel herself as the circumstances she’s trying to make sense of. The character at the centre of The Girl on the Train is an unstable and compelling mess whose reliability is constantly called into question, not least by her. Can she trust her own memories? Laura Whitmore plays Rachel with a delicate balance of likeability and moral ambiguity, and an excellent supporting cast of characters provide a steadying contrast, giving perspective to her actions with varying degrees of judgement and compassion. Paul McEwan’s Detective Inspector Gaskill in particular felt fully fleshed out, bringing a mixture of grounded warmth and no-nonsense terseness to the stage.
“There are voids… in everyone” says Freya Parks’ ill-fated Megan Hipwell, and The Girl on the Train leads a taut dance around black holes – the holes in Rachel’s memory, the voids of loss and grief. Revelations come at a satisfying rhythm, and when holes are filled the missing pieces are revealed to contain a surprising tenderness and humanity. At Megan’s speech disclosing a past tragedy, you could have heard a pin drop. I had seen the 2016 film but was lucky enough to have forgotten what happens – there were points where I audibly gasped.
The atmosphere is as crisp and chilly as an autumn evening, and the tension doesn’t sag for even a moment. The production design and the script gel beautifully. Jack Knowles’ lighting design, Elizabeth Purnell’s sound design and Paul Englishby’s music create a bleak world against which the dialogue stands out starkly, Rachel’s interactions intensifying her isolation and at times sputtering into subtle warmth. There is just enough softness and humour to keep us caring for the characters at the same time as we wonder who we can trust.
The Girl on the Train is a riveting piece of theatre with a deeply human heart. It’s on at the Theatre Royal till Saturday June 7 – I highly recommend you go and see it.
Anjali gives The Girl On The Train four stars ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Tickets: ATG Tickets
