If you’re looking for a family movie to curl up on the sofa and enjoy over the festive period, Channel 5’s streaming service has just added 2022’s The Railway Children Return to its library to watch for free.
Starring Sheridan Smith and Call the Midwife‘s Jenny Agutter, the drama is a sequel to the 1970 film The Railway Children, which was based on the E Nesbit’s novel of the same name. Agutter reprises her role as Bobbie Waterbury from the first film, who is now all grown up and experiencing war again, this time as a grandmother.
Set in 1944 as the Second World War sees bombs falling on Britain, it follows the Watts children, led by eldest daughter Lily, who are evacuated from Manchester to a village in Yorkshire.
The siblings are then sent to live with Bobbie Waterbury (Agutter), her daughter Annie (Smith) and her son Thomas (Adolescence’s Austin Haynes).
While living with the family, near a US Army base they befriend Abe (KJ Aikens), an African-American soldier, who is injured and hiding a big secret that puts himself and potentially Lily in danger.
StudioCanal
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The Railway Children Return received mostly positive reviews upon its release in 2022.
In its review, Empire compared the film to the original, writing: “The Railway Children Return is engaging and entertaining in different ways, winningly played by its fresh cast.”
The Guardian wrote: “It’s an amiable and ingenious tribute to the innocent, good-natured spirit of the original.”
Back in 2022, Agutter spoke to Digital Spy about her decision to return for the Railway Children sequel.
“I like the idea of being Bobbie much later on,” she said. “That Bobbie somehow survived through that first and second world war.
“I think [book author] E Nesbit would have liked the idea of it as well, because they all believed in time travel and in some funny way being able to time travel and bring something from the past to another period of time, which doesn’t belong to us, but affects us.”
The Railway Children Return is streaming now on Channel 5.
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Reporter, Digital Spy
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