REVIEW: COCKFOSTERS at Turbine Theatre 13 – 31 August 2024

‘an excellent evening in the theatre, the participation is effective and kind, and a good time is had by all’ ★★★★

Cockfosters is an unusual sort of show, a comedy that doesn’t try to do anything apart from being funny. It isn’t a satire, it doesn’t have a campaigning agenda to re-nationalise the railway network, it isn’t trying to teach anyone anything, apart from a few nuggets of Underground Railway trivia. It just wants to crack jokes.

Some of the humour is a bit Carry On… styled, albeit with a 2020s woke overlay, but most of it is putting on silly hats and running around, and the company does it very well indeed – energetic, engaging, charming, they have a straightforward agenda, but they deliver very effectively. The show never gets slow, never gets boring, generates smiles galore and a rich cargo of proper laughs. It is an excellent evening in the theatre, the participation is effective and kind, and a good time is had by all.  

The story on which shenanigans are hung involves two arrivals at Heathrow, sitting in neighbouring seats, sparking a conversation, and deciding to ride the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters (which is, for anyone without access to a Tube map, the northernmost station on the line. It’s a lot of stops away from Heathrow). Various characters get on and off, some of them fairly naturalistic, some of them fantastic, including a travelling quiz show that spills out into the audience and tests us on our knowledge of the system. There’s a story about their prior relationships. We learn that the man broke up with his fiancee on their wedding day and had to honeymoon all on his own, we learn about her exes, we see the attraction growing between them, and we enjoy the prospect of a happy ending, but mostly we are along for the ride. Tom Woffenden and Hamish Clayton wrote it, Hamish Clayton directs at a furious pace, and the cast throw themselves into a variety of parts with brio. It’s a fun ride.

COCKFOSTERS at Turbine Theatre 13 – 31 August 2024

Box Office: https://www.theturbinetheatre.com/whats-on/cockfosters

Producer/writer - tom Woffenden

Writer/Director/Producer - Hamish Clayton