Over the Easter holidays, one of our entertainers, Liam Edwards, was busy at Great Central Railway as their very own mascot, Onslaught the Cat at their Easter Animals Event! Liam, along with a number of our other entertainers, has previously worked at the railway as a variety of characters at their Seasonal family events, including superheroes, villains, and everything in between! This time, it was GCR’s own mascot that was making an appearance for guests. Liam was excited to return to work with the railway to help to ensure the standard of interaction with the guests and have plenty of fun whilst there too! We asked him to let us know a little more about the experience.
“Onslaught the Cat is the real station Cat at GCR. She lives in the signal house at the end of the platform. During the day, she takes over duties as the station master, and is never too busy to chat to the passengers.
Onslaught can speak, but only in a series of carefully pronounced meows. I really enjoyed making up the kitty language. I’m at a point now where basic phrases can be understood, when combined with gestures “Yes, No, Hello, Goodbye, All aboard, I don’t know, Thank You, You’re Welcome”. I’m still working on “Tickets please” Just like any Cat, however, Onslaught is partial to snacks, it was always funny to joke around with passengers by pretending I wanted some biscuits.”
As with all of the characters we perform as across the company, Liam spent lots of time giving Onslaught her very own personality, to really bring the experience to life, and spread lots of excitement as guests came to ride these trains on what always proves to be a fantastic day out – including meet and greets, photo opportunities, a mini petting zoo, and train rides on some incredible steam engines! Liam got stuck in meeting some of the animals that were a part of the event too and was very brave as he held one of the snakes who was there to say hello!
A big thank you to June and the whole team at Great Central Railway for having us back with you. Be sure to keep an eye out for future events – Who knows what exciting, colourful characters you could get the chance meet!
