Girl on the Train is on the right track

Whether you were gripped by the book, or arrive at the theatre knowing nothing of the hype surrounding the best seller Girl on the Train is definately on the right track at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury

this week.

The psychological who dunnit has been adapted for the stage by Rachel Wagstaff and Duncan Abel and stars former Eastenders actress Samantha Womack as Rachael.

If, like me, you loved Paula Hawkins' novel and have pictures in your head of the houses that Rachael gazes at from her train carriage it is always a worry that anything else won't live up to your imagination.

The film version was an immediate disappointment when I realised it was set, not in England, but America.

Thankfully the play is set very much in Britain as you realise even before the curtain opens and sticks far closer to the book than the Hollywood version.

Rachael's own life is in a mess and she longs for the apparently perfect live of the couple she sees from the train. But when the woman disappears she finds herself right at the heart of the mystery.

Lovers of Girl on the Train will recognise much of the script and also notice the slight differences.

But they certainly don't deter from what is an increasingly edge of your seat drama as the small and excellent cast take the audience into their lives through Rachael's eyes.

There are clever uses of flashbacks but not quite the psychological menace that the author brought to her novel. There are also better ways to portray anger than the over use of the "F-word".

However, the way the train itself it portrayed it brilliant and the ending is probably, dare I say it, even more terrifying than the book.

Girl on the Train is on stage at Theatre Severn until Saturday.