HOW apt that Green Hammerton's Badapple Theatre Company should be taking their latest show around villages: the very subject of writer-director Kate Bramley's new play.

Badapple's touring mantra is Theatre On Your Doorstep and, along with Nobby Dimon's Richmond company North Country Theatre, they pack out many a village and community hall.

Badapple are probably best known for their brace of wartime Land Girls plays. This time too, The Last Station Keeper has a foot in the past, but another in the present, and if it is possible to be three-footed, one in the fast-approaching future too.

In a nutshell, the 21st century's need for speed hits the old ways head on in Bramley's tale of the perils of modern life in the fictional village of Honeypot Holt, where the old Station House is under threat of closure from a new high-speed rail link.

Adrian Palmer and Robert Wade's Hinge and Bracket-style old ladies Ethel and Gladys introduce each half in a comedic double act and also conduct the more serious matter of an audience vote on whether the Station House should be saved or sacrificed.

Influencing their decision will be the overlapping stories of Fiona Organ's haunting Melissa, a mysterious, tragic figure from the station's past; Palmer's beekeeping station master Marshall, a romanticist whose life straddles the early Sixties' Beeching railway cuts and the old Station House today; and Wade's unromantic, pragmatic voice of change, young Richie, who wants the high-speed link pronto.

York Press:

Fiona Organ as Melissa in The Last Station Keeper. Picture: Tom Jackson

Each has a different perspectives on the same scenario, whether backward looking, forward looking or in stasis, and each looks askance at the others. Likewise, the audience will have different perspectives too, hence the climactic vote.

Catherine Dawn's set evokes the Yorkshire country and the old railways, while Jez Lowe's songs add to the enjoyment of a piece that is largely conducted as a comedy, especially in the interplay between Palmer and Wade, while Organ's Melissa draws you intriguingly into her story, one with a devastating revelation.

In her interview in The Press, Bramley noted how "we can try and move too fast and it can have dire consequences. Many of us find it hard to unplug but I do think it’s necessary for happiness". Such is the balance of rural life, wanting better internet and rail connections, but also still finding a place for a show like this, bringing a community together to see the funny side in a village hall.

Badapple Theatre Company stage The Last Station Keeper at Marton cum Grafton Memorial Hall, October 25 (box office, 01423 325179); Sand Hutton and Claxton Village Hall, October 26 (01904 468376/468195/468001); Gilling West Village Hall, October 27 (01748 823556 ); Yarm Fellowship Hall, October 28 (01642 888786); Luddington Village Hall, October 29 (01724 798543) and Markington War Memorial Institute, near Harrogate, October 30(01423 771748 or 01423 339168). All shows start at 7.30pm.