Written and directed by Stewart Mackinnon of Trade Films, a children’s railway safety film produced for the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, branded as Nexus. Told in flashback as a cautionary tale, the film tells the story of three friends who meet a girl on the Tyne & Wear Metro who encourages them to something dangerous that leading to tragic consequences. A morning assembly at a primary school with the children sitting on the floor in front of a teacher. As the class...

Written and directed by Stewart Mackinnon of Trade Films, a children’s railway safety film produced for the Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive, branded as Nexus. Told in flashback as a cautionary tale, the film tells the story of three friends who meet a girl on the Tyne & Wear Metro who encourages them to something dangerous that leading to tragic consequences. A morning assembly at a primary school with the children sitting on the floor in front of a teacher. As the class gets to their feed the camera focusing in on two twin boy and, according to one of the twins who is the narrator of this film, their friend Charlies standing next to them. In voiceover the boy talks about his brother, his friend and having fun on the Metro with Charlie’s dog. With the boy continuing his narration the class sit back down as a girl comes forward to collect a certificate from the teacher. She holds it up for the group who applaud. At a Tyne and Wear Metro station the narrator quashes his faces onto the glass of a door on a Metro car as it closes. Title: The Metro Chicken The narrator and his friend Charlie race through a Metro car passing both seated and standing passengers. Reaching the front of the carriage Charlie turns and sees a girl standing in a doorway, she is smoking a cigarette. Two other boys rush onboard followed by a montage of the twins and Charlie racing through various carriages intercut with the girl looking out a window of the speeding train. Charlie stands in the other doorway looking at the girl, she sees him and turns away the sequence ends with the train heading into a tunnel. At Manors station the girl gets off the train, she is followed shortly after the twins and Charlie who step from a different door. As the train pulls away she opens a drinks can and sprays the content on the carriage. Charlies pretends to walk a tightrope along the edge of the platform, the girl appears to be doing the same but is revealed to be walking along one of the Metro railway tracks. She places the empty soda can on the track, in the background the sound of a train approaching. The can begins to shake as the train gets closer, but she remains standing there. As the train speeds through Manor station the girl opens her eye to reveal that she actually standing on a different track to the one the train was using. She smiles with satisfaction as she climbs up onto the far platform. With her cigarette still in her hand she looks across to the boys on the far platform and watches as the twin’s jump down and race across the tracks to join her on the far platform. Charlie, looking nervous, looks across at the girl who looks back at him encouraging him to follow her, in the background the sound of another train approaching. She calls Charlie a ‘chicken’. Charlie jumps down onto the track, but rather than race across to the other platform he instead runs into a tunnel, the sound of a train horn blowing in the background. The girl drops her cigarette and screams as Charlie disappears into the darkness, the sound of the train getting closer. The soda can on the track shakes violently before falling over as the sounds of a train slamming on its breaks in the darkness of the tunnel. A dog appearing from the tunnel changes to a Metro carriage as it passes through Manors station entering the next tunnel with the station getting smaller and darker the further away the train travels. Filmed in black and white the assembly seen at the start sing the hymn ‘Jerusalem’. The narrator sits with his class looking sad, in voiceover he talks about the death of his friend Charlie ‘it was so stupid’. Credit: The Cast. The Twins Stephen Walker, Anthony Walker Charlie, Sam Sisterson Girl, Toni Truwick Voice, Marc Akinfolarin Title: Thanks to the staff and pupils at Christ Church CE Primary School, Newcastle upon Tyne and The Metro staff for their help and co-operation And to John Adams, Chillingham Primary School, Dorothy Ellis, The Shiney Street Theatre and Gillian Brooks Credit: Crew Camera David Rea Editor Steven Craggs Titles Mark Huskisson Produced by Bob Davis Written and Directed by Stewart Mackinnon End title: A Trade Films Production for Nexus 1997