Ivory's Model Railway Club Play Explores Brexit Nostalgia
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- William Ivory wrote the comedy, inspired by a 2019 incident in which four youths broke into Welland Academy and trashed a model railway exhibition, with the play depicting the club's life-shattering reaction to the vandalism.
- The story is set against the Brexit backdrop, with Theresa May's resignation and Boris Johnson promising to "take back control" framing the club's motto of "Pullmans not politics" and the question of where nostalgia for steam ends and suspicion of foreigners begins.
- Adam Penford directs the seven-man cast plus Lucy Briers as the put-upon club secretary, who serves as the catalyst for the men's emotional articulacy.
- The cast features Adrian Scarborough as the rule-book-clinging chairman, Paul Bradley as an old-timer mixing up his meds, and Babatunde Aléshé as the new boy whose viral social-media fame draws blank stares from the club.
- The Market Deeping club is shown celebrating a second victory at Stamford's regional exhibition, with the reviewer calling the blend of camaraderie and dodderiness comparable to "Calendar Girls" meets "Dad's Army".
Why it matters: By framing a niche Lincolnshire hobby against May's resignation and Johnson's "take back control" rhetoric, Ivory turns model railway nostalgia into a referendum on British identity — and the reviewer finds the gentle comedy lands despite the weighty argument.
