COCKFOSTERS is a brilliantly off-the-rails comedy that will change your commute forever. So top up your Oyster, mind the gap and hop aboard the tube journey of a lifetime! We sat down talking to Tom and Hamish about this screamingly funny comedy.
You’ve said Cockfosters is bigger, better and even more chaotic this time around — what’s the most gloriously chaotic moment you’ve added for the Southwark Playhouse run?
Hamish: Let’s just say it involves a baby, a hipster and a microphone.
You capture the “inherently British” love-hate vibe with the tube so perfectly — was there one moment on public transport where you thought: yep, this is it — this has to be a show?
Tom: My dad came home one day absolutely devastated. Why? For the first time ever, he’d been offered a seat on the tube. He saw it as society labelling him old and, therefore, in need of a seat. I’ve never forgotten him telling me that, and it’s a moment that will happen to all of us one day. So it’s in the show, told through an existential monologue written which is pretty much exactly as it was first written.
With Cockfosters building up such a head of steam, where would you love the next ‘stop’ for the show to be — are we talking national tour, West End takeover, Broadway?
Tom: Two years ago, we started the show above a pub. Three sellout runs later, we find ourselves at Southwark Playhouse. It’s incredible. Long term, we see Cockfosters extending by another 30 minutes and becoming a musical. It just feels like a show set on the tube has a place in London.
Tom, since Cockfosters was your first play and now you’ve got another success under your belt (In and Out of Love), how has your approach to writing for the stage evolved — more chaos, or just better shoes?
My journey through theatre has all been by accident. I never expected to be doing Cockfosters for two years. In six weeks, Hamish and I put this thing together. And I did the same with In and Out of Love – it’s the teams you work with that make these shows happen. I’ve loved what I’ve been a part of and look forward to what’s next.
Hamish, you split your time between London and Amsterdam — has hopping between two different cities changed the way you see London life, or even inspired new madness for the next project?
I suppose leaving London does let you see it in a different light. Firstly you cycle everywhere in Amsterdam so there’s not so many public transport anecdotes… I think you realise what an integral part of life the tube is for almost every Londoner!
Which Piccadilly Line stop would each of you say best matches your personality — and why?
Tom: Acton Town – a bit tired!
Hamish: Holloway Road – not flashy, but reliable
Ticket and info:https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/cockfosters/