Features » Rail journey
Posted June 29, 2012 11:21 am by Newsdesk
Posted under: Events
The dramatic and moving story of Oswestry’s railway is being enacted by Llanymynech’s LADS drama group.
The outdoor performance, sprawling over Oswestry station’s newly-restored platform and track, shows how intimately intertwined the railway became with daily life, here and across Wales.
Scriptwriter Neil Rhodes blends together big, panoramic stories – the unstoppable army of navvies digging and blasting the railway’s path – with individual tales of heroism. The Oswestry draper who created a rail system that reached into every corner of Wales. The station employee, John Hood, whose testimony before parliament cost him his job, but ended abusive practices by railway companies.
These are interwoven with small, human stories, both funny and touching.
The huge cast, together with musicians, delivers a credible, entertaining performance.
There’s a final chance to catch Making Tracks tonight and tomorrow at Oswestry station at 7pm.
Take warm clothes.
It’s great to see the Station being used for this event. It couldn’t be more appropriate.
An almost surreal experience to sit at track level watching excellent child actors up on a reinstated platform, and who themselves may one day board the passenger trains from Oswestry which they deserve.
This was a wonderful piece of site specific theatre! The station building itself was the backdrop, the platform the stage and former track area the auditorium. The cast and all those involved with staging this deserve our admiration and thanks. It is yet another example of the talent, commitment, and creative approaches local people have. The Cambrian Railway is much more than buildings and trains; it is part of Oswestry’s heritage and culture, past, present and future. The children who so brilliantly performed as well as though who were in the audience are the future. By being given their history in such a creative manner they themselves are in a better position to help fashion the future creatively.
The Station will also be the venue for Os21′s Pie and Pint party on the 14th July. The more people who see this beautiful building and use it in all sorts of new ways, the more people will have a stake in its future!