Broken Legs Blog

“If you’re looking for a fun day out, this is just the ticket”

Performing at railways across the country, “Off and On” is a classic farce set aboard a train in the 80s that sees the Minister for Transport caught with his trousers down as journalists threaten to expose his political secrets. Some performances of “Off and On” take place on moving trains – others, such as the one I saw at Midland Railway, require a train ride to get to the performance location, travelling from Butterley Station to Swanwick Junction on a diesel train from the 80s that is extremely appropriate for this production. The play itself, written and directed by Ben Cawood, is incredibly reminiscent of those classic BBC sitcoms (think Yes Minister or Fawlty Towers), family-friendly humour with just the right amount of near-the-knuckle innuendo, whilst the situations the various characters find themselves in gradually become more and more absurd.

Things get off to a bad start for train manager Philip (Jay Raj Chaudhry), who is trying his best to ensure a faultless trip for the head of Network Rail and the Minister, who are both booked on for a journey on his sleeper train. Unfortunately for Philip, he is assisted by two hapless conductors, Eddy (Elliott Eardley) and Stacy (Amaya Clark), who are both more interested in each other than their jobs. In the dining car, Stacy has happily substituted leek for kale, ensuring Philip that no one will notice the difference as they are anagrams of each other, only to discover that head of Network Rail Hemingway (Antoine Vander Elst) is allergic to all juice except leak, and especially susceptible to kale.

Things take an even stranger turn when Minister George (Sam Gordon-Webb) arrives, and it becomes apparent that he is having an illicit affair with Hemingway’s wife Paula (Bethan Avery), whilst Hemingway is obsessed with George’s wife Judith (Christine Williams). As the four characters become entangled in the convoluted plot, they manage to explain their ways out of certain situations with increasingly unlikely explanations – when caught in a compromising position with Paula, George explains they are rehearsing ballroom dancing, whilst Judith ends up performing a myriad of accents for seemingly no apparent reason (although it does allow Williams a chance to show off her skills).

The energy is high throughout, and the actors attack this production with incredible pace, barely giving the audience time to breathe before racing on to the next plot point. We are treated to excellent physical comedy courtesy of Elst and Gordon-Webb, who make for a formidable double act as they constantly butt heads, whilst the writing is also very clever, some wonderful demonstrations of wordplay scattered throughout – George’s warning that his wife is “on board” is instead taken to mean that his wife is ok with his extra-marital affair and keen to get involved.

Also on board (but not in that sense) are newly weds Simon (Arbennik Webster) and Wendy (Emilia Lewis), who become embroiled in the chaos when journalist Simon overhears George expressing his dislike of the Prime Minister and threatens to leak the story. To try to wriggle free of this predicament, George decides to swap clothes with conductor Eddy, and this leads to the entire cast swapping costumes, for more and more absurd reasons (at one point, Scottish Philip agrees to wear Judith’s dress because he is “used to wearing a kilt”). The story gets a little confusing to follow at times, as we struggle to keep track of what each character thinks they know, although the convoluted plot is excellently summed up by a monologue delivered by Lewis towards the end of the play, gabbled through at breakneck speed that truly hammers home how ridiculous the story has become.

The energy of the cast means that there certainly isn’t a dull moment to be had, although one cannot help but wish there were some quieter moments to allow us to catch up and enjoy the characters a little more without worrying about losing the thread of the storyline. Some of the jokes are perhaps taken a little too far (George spends so much time without trousers on that the characters stop questioning it), while other moments see multiple things happening at once, such as one character giving another CPR whilst two others have an unrelated argument, that can leave the audience unsure what to focus on.

Overall, this is a thoroughly enjoyable ride from start to finish, that perfectly captures the essence of old-fashioned comedies, whilst tying the production with different railway attractions around the country means that it feels fresh and new. Right Track Theatre are an up-and-coming theatre company formed of recently graduated drama students, and this production demonstrates just how much promise the actors and production team have. If you’re looking for a fun day out, this is just the ticket.

Tom Morley, August 2026