The Signalman
He is a man diligent in his duties, keeping the signal box clean and tidy, enjoying the sense of order and finding that the routine brings him a peaceful calm, conscientious in his greater responsibility to the trains that pass by under his supervision, the timetable memorised and never straying so far from his post that he cannot hear the bell which warns of an unexpected approach, yet some things are greater than any one person.
Witness to a terrible accident, the signalman is haunted not by the sight of the destruction or the hours it took to remove the wounded and the dead, rendering what meagre assistance he could and witnessing the passing of many as they were laid bleeding upon the grass, but by what he had witnessed the night before, a figure by the red light at the entrance of the tunnel, one arm across their face and the other waving, as if in warning…
An ominous supernatural story first published in 1866 and noted by Doctor Who as among his favourites of the works of Charles Dickens when they man three years later, The Signalman has been adapted by Martin Malcolm and directed by Sam Raffal as a one-man theatrical performance from Tim Larkfield, the hiss of the smoke machine recalling the sound of a steam locomotive as it fills the stage in shrouded mystery as the terrified narrator crosses the stage to stand under the red spotlight which signifies the uncanny intrusion into his ordered life.
Simply staged, it is the signalman alone who carries the story, a man who against common sense has come to believe but has had his concerns dismissed, told that what he thinks he saw was “to do with the nerves that minister to the delicate functions of the eye,” afraid to push further for fear that people will assume it is guilt causing his aberrant mental state, that he was in some way responsible for the accident, the tragedy rolling towards him slowly but with a momentum that cannot be diverted.
The Signalman continues at Zoo Southside until Sunday 25th August
