The Railway Children is not E Nesbit's best story for children, but it is one of the most beloved. Mary Elliott Nelson's adaptation should win the novel more fans: it remains faithful and in period, yet gives the story a contemporary slant. The theme of home and exile runs through the evening, a point further made in Andrew Breakwell's enjoyable production by the doubling of the roles of the children's father (unjustly imprisoned for selling state secrets) and that of Russian writer Szczepansky (forced to flee the Czarist regime after being sent to Siberia).
If this darker side of the story is well handled, so too is its sunnier aspect. Even when, on the first night, the train failed to move at the end of act one, it didn't matter much because every child - and a good few adults - in the audience had a smile on their face at the children's discovery of the 9.15am train that they christen the Green Dragon. It is just a whoosh of smoke but because the actors so clearly believe in it, we do too. It is a little moment of magic. The evening has a pleasing simplicity all round, and Breakwell's production turns what might have seemed purely episodic into something far more fluid with help from Jane Linz Roberts's classy design, which has just the right mix of the functional and the beautiful.
It is a gentle evening, but gentle without being overly nostalgic. And if Richard Sumitro and Bryony Harding have more fun with the quaint Peter and the accident-prone Phyllis than Krissi Brown has with Bobbie, that is mostly Nesbit's fault. Brown gets her emotional high point at the end when father and daughter are reunited. The supporting cast of actor-musicians are good, too, with musical director Matt Marks creating a delightful score.
· Until April 10. Box office: 0870 737 0337.
