Saturday Play – Playing With Trains

Zoë plays Roxanna Galpin in a new two-part radio adaptation of the Stephen Poliakoff play Playing With Trains, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 20th\27th March 2010.

The play tells the story of the rise and fall of Bill Galpin, played by Spall, who is a flamboyant entrepreneur who pools his fortune into backing risky inventions which are concerned with safeguarding the environment, while at the same time having a very tempestuous but poignant relationship with his two children Roxanna (Tapper) and Danny (Streatfeild).

Beginning in the heady days of the late Sixties, Playing With Trains deals with the fact that Britain invents so much, yet manufactures so little. Galpin makes a fortune from a brilliant development in gramophone technology, and then turns himself into a self-appointed patron and champion of inventors and innovators everywhere, clashing with the establishment through the libel courts, speeches to captains of industry, civil service offices and even TV shows.

Parallel to his relationship with industry is that with his children. Roxanna – whom he expects to become a great engineer – drops out of Cambridge and becomes an art student in an attempt to escape her father's grip. Danny, meanwhile, turns into the very thing his father despises – a financial expert – but in so doing recognises the shortcomings of his father's enterprises.

Other cast members include Helen Longworth (Frances), Joseph Kloska (Mick), Nigel Hastings (Vernon Boyce), Michael Fenton Stevens (Gant) and Bruce Alexander (QC).

Producer/Peter Leslie Wild

Part 1 [56:53]

Download here or Listen online:

Part 2 [56:57]

Download here or Listen online: