Cockfosters @ The Turbine Theatre - Review
A hilarious, concise and well acted sermon on the joys and perils of the London Underground. ★★★★★
The Turbine Theatre, Battersea, until 31st August.
Tickets from £15.50, though mine was slightly cheaper as I saw a preview.
Rating: ★★★★★
An hour long and set on a journey along entire length of the Picadilly line, Cockfosters could be an awfully cringy sketch show with the wrong cast and fine details. It’s not far off from that- in a cast of seven, five play multiple characters, changing wigs and coats and putting on accents of variable quality, but the pacing, execution and the hilariously relatable, accurate observations about the Underground elevate it.
Along the journey we have the usual victims of British humour- loud americans, rah poshos, hen nights- but we also have ghosts of the Tube’s previous lives, charmingly inaccurate vignettes of it’s creation, and a vague sense of mystery about the leading couples’ lives. It’s unapologetically dismissive of any attempt to make you suspend your disbelief, the (fantastic, minimalist) tube carriage set easily becomes a Venetian restaurant, a Mexican yoga retreat, simply because it’s narratively declared to now be one.
The acting is good, and well matched for the genre. Our leading pair largely play it straight and subdued, realist, while overacting rotating characters amp up the surrealism around them. Natasha Vasandani is especially perfectly cast, an excellent mimic of mannerisms and confident in accents regardless of quality, she has a versatility and ease of moving between dispirate characters that works perfectly for this play.
However, this is one you need a lot of context to truly enjoy. You should be not only a lover of the Underground, but also at least have a few years of London under your belt, or a lot of the show will go over your head. This isn’t one for a tourist looking to experience London culture, it’s for people to whom the London Underground is a natural fact of life.
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