Kindertransport

Kindertransport is a based on one of the 10,000 mostly Jewish children evacuated to Britain from Nazi Germany in the months just before the War.

Once on that train, most never saw their parents again.

Diane Samuels’ tender play explores the abandonment felt by Eva, an awkward nine-year-old émigré from Hamburg, the rigid independence and denial in the British woman she becomes, and the bewilderment of her own daughter left out of Eva’s secret.

Across four decades, as boxes are packed and repacked, the action nicely meshes these generations, times and memories in scenes played almost simultaneously. Imogen Ross’ wall of cardboard boxes and old wardrobes, sometimes transformed into trains, provides a fine setting.

Sarah Greenwood is touchingly gauche as Eva, and Camilla Ah Kin bristles as her nervy adult self, while Annie Byron is familiar as the warm Manchester woman who adapts Eva.  Harriet Gordon-Anderson is the egocentric daughter, Emma Palmer is Eva’s tragic mother left in Hamburg while Christopher Tomkinson does walk-on roles in a play which leaves the men aside.

Sandra Eldridge nimbly directs this ensemble – and Eva’s slowly unfolding secret – through the time shifts, supported by inventive soundscapes and lighting effects from Jed Silver and Matt Cox.

Even with this theatricality, Samuels’ 1993 play is occasionally laborious and overwritten.  But it’s a compelling transporting journey with a provocative climax, even if the final, very un-British explosion of emotion doesn’t quite hit home.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Philip Erbacher.