Cockfosters review

This works best when they take a small but indelibly familiar detail of the Tube experience and blow it up into surreally inventive proportions. It’s hilarious when the ubiquitous adverts for products such as Wellwoman come to life, hawking their wares to us. A ruff-wearing Shakespeare (played with platefuls of relish by 2023 British Comedy Guide Pro Talent Award winner Kit Loyd) pompously reciting his verse as one of those recurring TFL "Poems" boards is inspired brilliance.

But for every nimble comic creation that delightfully disrupts James and Tori’s journey to the end of the Piccadilly Line, we get laboured jokes about skid marks or crudely drawn characters – among them a pair of baffled American tourists – that are just loud rather than funny. There’s self-indulgence in these scenes, the writing chasing itself into a cul-de-sac. It’s also in these moments, as when an Italian waiter from James’ holiday pops in, that the Tube feels like a tenuous excuse for a comedy try-out, rather than the integral and distinctive feature of London life that the play elsewhere insists it is.

Nevertheless, the rapid turnover means there’s always something better coming down the line. The seven-strong cast’s comedic pedigree is a major bonus. Beth Lilly, who provides a likeable and naturalistic anchor as Tori, is an alum of The Play That Goes Wrong, as is Harry Bradley. Natasha Vasandani has written, directed and acted in the NewsRevue at the Edinburgh Fringe. This impressively versatile ensemble makes this a journey with plenty of big laughs.