FringeReview UK 2025
Cockfosters
Southwark Playhouse and cockfostersplay.
Genre: character comedy, Comedy, Contemporary, Mainstream Theatre, Musical Theatre, New Writing, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Southwark Playhouse Large Studio, Borough
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
For the second time this year Southwark Playhouse has a smash, and not the one they wanted. A tube train has careened into the Borough’s Large Studio where many of the maddest Londoners – and Americans – have boarded. And this Piccadilly tube’s headed to Cockfosters. Which is co-written and directed by Hamish Clayton, with co-writer producer and songwriter Tom Woffenden at Southwark’s Borough Large till January 3.
Fizzing, witty uber-London without Uber and smart without telling us it is. Except if you think you’re a boring great poet. Blissfully recommended.
Review
For the second time this year Southwark Playhouse has a smash, and not the one they wanted. A tube train has careened into the Borough’s Large Studio where many of the maddest Londoners – and Americans – have boarded. Not to mention Victorians. Can Tori (Victoria) be to blame? The tube’s in her blue veins, via her grandfather. Victoria (right colour then) has just bumped into James and this Piccadilly tube’s headed to Cockfosters. Which is co-written and directed by Hamish Clayton, with co-writer producer and songwriter Tom Woffenden at Southwark’s Borough Large till January 3.
A love-song to tube travel and London, where being “Lon-done” is simply inconceivable to some (surprised Dr Johnson didn’t jump in and shout “Tired of London? Tired of Life!”), it’s also a paean to metro-diversity while on the metro, and app-free cute-meets. And your ancestry. There’s relatively deft flashback stories of the pair, with a flurry of gondoliers and ravers; not to mention flash-history as Charles Pearson the tube’s pioneer boards. Now there’s a plot-point…
Tori (Beth Lilly) is just back from Mexico but not found her purpose despite the yoga. And James (Sam Rees-Baylis) just back from Venice has been dumped by his Cruella de Ville-dressed fiancée for – Winnie-the-Pooh. His phone’s smashed and his luggage is missing too. So they’re just a bit better-off than some, but as we find, not by much.
And we only find those snapshots out through every interruption unimaginable. Loud Charlie Keable doing obnoxious things with characters: including James’s ‘friend’ Richard, who crashes in and in (at Hammersmith and Arnos Grove) like the worst version of James Corden stuck in a lift between shows, thinking he’s a party Mephistopholes. He even asks for Tori’s number. The one she gives has consequences. But James hasn’t even the bottle to ask for it. And when he does make jokes they pratfall down the tiniest tubeholes. Never mind, a wedge of Arsenal supporters can always beat it (whatever you do, Ash Sarkar, don’t shout “Spurs!” here!). Or Londoners themselves who after a trio of buskers litanising every tube station (twice, if you include the outros) enter a spat in rap form about North and Sarf London. Even James gets involved.
Liam Horrigan is often a toff or posh busking tramp, but most affectingly in a Hamlet-ridden ticket collector, in full regalia in a spotlight: suddenly realising that his kind may one day be extinct. There’s quite a bit of Hamlet-shaming, as it happens. Princess Donnaugh whose spangled moment comes as show host lights up regal characters. And Donnaugh doesn’t confine herself to the tube. So you think you know all about the underground? Really? Emily Waters apart from her Celia Johnson mode is the most active singer with an ardent, nightbar soprano. They all sing but Waters with guitar, litanising all the tube stops is a wonder that won’t stop: one of the hardest-working in numerous characters from teen to genteely tottering.
These ensembles raps and sung pieces show off just how talented they are as a troupe, with split-timing pace and caffeine-fuelled costume-changes. It’s no coincidence five of the six cast have either been in The Play That Goes Wrong or Sh*t Faced Shakespeare. Only forlorn straight-man Rees-Baylis has come from a straight 503 Theatre play. He is of course appealing and funny but scores a truth that Lilly also adds to her sassy, quietly-attracted but questing character. The touch of nature each brings is why you enjoy the mayhem swirling round them.
Gareth Rowntree’s set is a neat Piccadilly tube section, with authentic seats below kooky and period adverts. Though beware of the Poetry on the Underground. It has a habit of leaping out and claiming it’s famous. Ben Sayers has neatly lit the tube to irradiate that strange hallucinatory moment when you feel alone and the tube’s shut down. And there’s any number of spooky stops and passengers to vary it. Lighting often tracks the people who get on and ensures this is never a static experience.
Assistant director Tom Vallely also stage-manages. As you enter there’s a tube whiteboard scrawled with the usual jokes. On the show’s first outing (at the Turbine) there was even a co-writer with a megaphone.
Rich Longdon has written additional song material but whoever wrote the catchy list song about the tube – him or Woffenden – deserve applause. Apart from the twangs the transitory blasts of underground shuts and drifts of music from Karl Jenkins to the Harry Lime theme percolate atmospherically, though they’re not plot pointers.
Highlights are numerous and involve those dizzying costume changes in 70 minutes. Even Tori and James are obliged to don Stetsons or Victorian headgear to mesh with the ongoing dynamic. From the crude to the quite sophisticated, jokes and pratfalls come so thick the not-couple hardly get a chance to be… alone. Even their heads breed monsters leaping onto the tube.
Both Lilly and Rees-Baylis delight in showing characters made giddy with the parody-people who jump off and on, and with each other. But increasingly for each other they’re also the wannabe still-points in the spinning world. Even when exes turn up or there’s neat gags about giving up your seat that has them shift round the carriage. Still, there’s a honey-trap waiting to be sprung when James realises it; and there’s also history lessons outside the tube quiz with vignettes from history shocked to find solutions.
Tori is just 30 and undergoing a quadlife crisis so will live to 120 quips James. But then he has too. And what secret did Tori’s grandad try revealing as he dies? And why do two ancient people have a clue? And will they ever get off…. together? Or get it on again. Not if the rest of the cast and TFL have anything to do with it. Even the announcers are divorcing. But what if Cockfosters isn’t the end of the line? Especially if it’s not an exit? Are either being quite truthful about where they’ll end up?
A perfect Christmas feelgood about two fairly young people who’ve just drawn blanks. Take the Retro (it’s a £1 programme like, well you’ve guessed). There’s even a crossword for your tube back via the Elephant and Castle. Because you’re not going to take a bus are you? Fizzing, witty uber-London without Uber and smart without telling us it is. Except if you think you’re a boring great poet. Blissfully recommended.
