FRIGHT TRAIN
A new collective of actors, directors, writers, designers, stage managers, musicians and artists.
Fright Train is a new collective founded to bring together artists into a strong company. We’re excited to bring ensembles into big and small spaces, inviting audiences to be up close and within the world of the story. Our company will platform great revivals as well as brilliant new work.
Judgment Day
Ödön von Horváth
Translated by Christopher Hampton
Our inaugural production is a play called Judgment Day.
Thomas Hudetz is a respected stationmaster deep in rural Germany. In a fractured moment of distraction, he causes chaos and destruction. His mistake is compounded by the town’s shifting morality and as neighbour turns on neighbour, the authorities bear down on him. He perjures himself and the villagers turn against him. Morality and wild humanity fight it out and the Express Train 405 hurtles on to eternity.
Written in 1937 as Nazism was gaining ground, Ödön von Horváth signals the dangers of fascism and brutal herd mentality. Forced into exile for his writing and activism, but on the cusp of global success, he was killed in Paris in a freak accident during a storm.
Director Matilda Ziegler revisits this play after 37 years, having played Anna in Stephen Daldry’s award-winning UK premiere of Judgment Day in 1989 at the Old Red Lion. Her daughter Faye Ziegler, a recent graduate of Oxford School of Drama, joins the cast to take on the same role.
‘The combination of a rarely revived masterwork, a deeply personal directorial debut, and one of London’s most atmospheric small venues makes this a production with genuine event status.’
- British Theatre
Our Director
Matilda Ziegler
“I was lucky enough to be in the UK premiere of Judgment Day in 1989 at the Old Red Lion. Director Stephen Daldry set a gold standard for uninhibited expressionist work which stays with you for a lifetime.
Judgment Day is a gripping tale of civic responsibility, mob mentality, and human fallibility. Inspired by my time working with Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago, I want to build a new collective using the momentum of this astonishing play.”
Matilda Ziegler
Bobbie Wilson
Fine Artist
Evie Hilyer-Ziegler
Musician/Composer
Lily Booth
Designer
The Original Poster of the 1989 Production
The original poster from Stephen Daldry’s 1989 production of Judgement Day at the Old Red Lion.
Matilda Ziegler, the director of our 2026 production, played the role of Anna in the UK premiere. Her daughter, Faye Ziegler, will play the same role in the same theatre in our upcoming production.
There are many cyclical stories and sliding doors moments which tie this company of actors and artists together, all set in motion 37 years ago in this theatre above one of the oldest pubs in London.
There is something uncanny about the pulling of time within and around this play, which in itself grapples with a timeless, fracturing world stirred by the constant presence of what’s to come. The play’s history of being banned for decades, the fate of its writer Ödön von Horváth, and its striking relevance today seem to be caught in its own thematic orbit.
