A LOCAL am dram group is staging a play next week that will hark back to the great age of rail in the South Hams.

At one time, Brent Station provided residents of the village and surrounds with a vital link to the wider world.

And now a production by South Brent Amateur Dramatic Society of The Railway Children, set in Brent itself, will bring that era back to life.

Adapted from Enid Nesbit’s enduringly popular book by Dave Simpson, the play is on in South Brent Village Hall on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 19 – 21 November at 7.30pm, with a matinee on Saturday 21 at 2.30pm.

SBADS is lucky to be able to draw on the tremendous enthusiasm of its junior section, with 16 young people taking part in the production, including ‘railway children’ Roberta, Peter and Phyllis, played by Sarah Lannin, Jamie Medd and Lily Green.

Other youngsters play the family of station porter Perks, village children and runners from the nearby grammar school.

Directors Greg Wall and John Giles decided to give the production a local flavour by setting it in and around South Brent station in 1910. The audience will be invited to use their imagination to identify Three Chimneys Cottage, the embankment where the children wave to the ‘old gentleman’, and the tunnel where disaster is narrowly averted. The play holds a special place in the heart of parish council chairman Greg, whose grandfather worked for the Great Western Railway at a number of stations in Devon and Cornwall at the time it is set, while his father was a porter at Brent station in the 1940s.

SBADS stalwart Robin Lee takes the central part of Perks, who also acts as narrator, while the Society’s chairman Nat Cook plays Mother. Other adult roles are taken by Kim Kidney, Peter Brown, John Gower, Mike Sermon and Guy Pannell.

Incidental music for the production has been specially composed by Paul Pennicotte-Henri, who will also perform it.

Tickets are on sale between 10am and 12.30pm at the Mare and Foal charity shop in the village, or call 07812 414916.