Fashion is a lifestyle, It's a choice...

By Ollie Lee

When my friends at school were reading The Beano and The Dandy I was reading Vogue, I was obsessed with the clothes and the models, the fabrics, the beauty of the styling... I could go on. However, having very basic artist ability, I was never going to be a designer and gave up hope of ever working in the industry when I was very young, but it seems fashion will always follow me everywhere.

Since I moved to London four years ago most of my closest friends have been stylists, fashion buyers or student artists, and just last week I moved to a new house in Fulham with three of the housemates working for companies within the industry, but I never thought it would follow me to The Railway Children.

One of The Railway Children’s most inspired qualities is that it takes place on a real train platform, and if anyone has seen the show, or spent any time on the old Eurostar platform you will not be surprised that one of the platforms is going to be used as a runway during fashion week. It’s a horribly beautiful industrial space, a mess of concrete, steel and glass, and if you catch the platform at the right time of day, and when the sun is out, eerie shadows are cast across the lonesome tracks and the dusty space is like something from Studio Ghibli.

So for the last few weeks I have been showing people round the platform, like a proud father, only too happy to show off the amazing space we are using for our production, as various people scribble down notes and sketches.

There really is little more to say on the matter for now, apart from I cannot wait for fashion week, and they are going to have an amazing show!

This blog is definitely to be continued...!!

P.S. Word to the wise for anyone attending the fashion show in September... pack some flats!

Unsung Heroes: Shane and Siobhan

By Ollie Lee

On one of the first weeks of The Railway Children going up, I remember standing in the foyer during the first act, when Siobhan came running past me and up the ramp leading to platform one, from where I and a few others stood, we could make out a woman screaming, not in pain, but in red rage. To go into explicates of what this woman, and her child were saying, I feel, should be avoided, this blog is for a family show after all, but needless to say, the words coming out her mouth were not nice ones. Minutes into the argument Shane had also gone to the platform to assist, but the presence of any human figure only seemed to be fuel to her fire.

The problem was small and also needless of detail, but the point is, there are difficult customers and there are difficult customers, and while the worst of them are few and far between, I don’t believe I would have had the emotional strength to deal with them, Siobhan and Shane however certainly do.

As self confessed “negative people” nothing but positivity was displayed when we discussed their roles here, “I enjoy seeing something evolve, that’s why I took this job” says Siobhan, “I really like the energy of it all, and solving various problems.”

“We just find the difficult customers funny,” continues Shane. “I like the sense of organisation about the job...people being rude to us is just a necessary evil.”

Our front of house stars had previously been working at The Royal Court, so it’s not surprising that it takes a lot to throw them. “I always knew what I was getting into,” says Siobhan. “I was excited about seeing something grow from nothing and dealing with the challenges ahead.”

From the outside it can look like quite a glam job, Siobhan and Shane (or Shavane) are often seen impeccably dress strutting through the corridors with radio headsets on, but it only takes a screaming woman, or hearing that someone has used a bin as a toilet, to realise it is not all sunshine and roses.

With a legion of new ushers to train and whip into shape, the name of a certain German dictator has been thrown around a few time in relation to the two, though I couldn’t possibly mention by who, I can say however, that while extremely efficient, they are pretty nice people to work with.. and even slightly inspiring. (I don’t want to go to over the top.)