The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley

[Riklaa]

The Ghost Train is a British play, written in 1923 by Arnold Ridley, who much later played Private Godfrey in Dad's Army.
The play was first performed at the Eltinge Theater[1]. Ridley was inspired to write it after becoming stranded overnight at Mangotsfield
railway station in Bristol, a now disused station on the Midland Railway
main line. It took him only a week to complete, but it played to packed
houses at St Martin's Theatre for two years and became a staple of the
British theatre for many years to come.

The plot revolves around a party of passengers who find themselves
stranded in the waiting room of an isolated station. The station master
tries to get them to leave citing the local legend of a ghost train that
dooms all who see it to death. The play was very unusual for its time
in using elaborate special-effects to simulate a train running through
the station, such as garden-rollers running over wooden laths, thunder
sheets, etc.

Adaptations
The stageplay has been adapted for various forms of media since its premiere:


Film versions
There was a film version made in 1931 starring comedian Jack Hulbert, of
which five reels of picture and two reels of soundtrack survive. It was
remade in 1941, starring Arthur Askey, with the story updated to the
Second World War.

The 1937 Will Hay comedy Oh, Mr Porter! is loosely based on the plot of this play.


Television version
On 20 December 1937 the BBC broadcast a forty minute presentation
performed in front of bulky Enitron cameras by John Counsell, Joan
Lawson, Don Gemmell, Alex McCringle, Clifford Benn, Arthur Young, Daphne
Riggs and Laura Smithson.


Radio version
A radio version of The Ghost Train has been broadcast by the BBC, most recently on BBC7 and this is it.


Trivia
In 1925, Arnold Ridley's theatre company went bust, and in a way to
clear his debts, he sold his rights to the play, for reportedly £300.

[Gerald Lea]

bump

[Riklaa]

A Cleaner verson, Heavens does mine have dirty talk in it? LOL Thank You ----------------------------------------- Rick

[TheMadBlonde]

I want the dirty version!!!

Thanks to both of you for posting.

[semoshorts]

Interesting play

Thanks for sharing

[Anson (Bob) Roberts]

The original play "The Ghost Train" was written by Arnold Ridley whom you may know better as Private Godfrey in Dad's Army. The story concerns a group of mismatched train passengers who end up getting stranded at lonely country railway station called Fal Vale. The next train to Truro is not for another nine hours and to make matters worse, the weather is terrible. They soon learn a local tale of mystery and fear concerning a phantom train that is sometimes heard and seen rushing down the track. The train carries the dead passengers, victims of a train crash that happened many years previously.

“Whatever it is, it never starts out at Truro, and it never runs into St. Anne’s. If it be a natural thing – where do it come from... where do it go?"

Here's a cleaner version

[Gerald Lea]

A wonderful version of a wonderful play.

It was a real tragedy for Ridley selling the rights, there was a time when the play was being performed somewhere in the world every day of the year!