Camden Fringe 2026: Off and On at Bridewell Theatre

It’s in the appropriately groan-worthy bon mots. It’s in the breathless declarations roughly adjacent to “Well, what’s all this then?!” and “Why, I never in my entire life!”; the constant shifting of costume, accent, and gender. Right Track Theatre’s Off and On is a well-studied homage to classic farce, one that knows the moves and sets its game, energetically committed cast to the task of dancing them (or stumbling, pratfalling and mugging them, to be more exact). The result is impressively slick and fast-moving; writer-director Ben Cawood understands that his playthings can only escape one comic frying pan at the expense of immediately landing in the nearest fire, and he scarcely lets them rest from the beginning of the brisk 85 minutes to the end. Whether the result actively tickles the funny bone or is too much the keen student, approximating its influences too neatly, to fully draw fresh laughs of its own may be in the eye of the beholder, but it remains a winningly propulsive piece of comic construction regardless.

The setting for the farce in question is the cars of a train, where the Travel Minister and his wife, a journalist honeymooning with his wealthy heiress wife, the moustachioed commander-in-chief of British rail and a neurotic conductor (among others) all converge in a series of romantic entanglements that soon escalate to the point of potential life or death. Standouts among them include Sam Gordon-Webb and Antoine Vander Elst, both perfectly extravagant as the aforementioned bigwigs trapped in slapstick hell. Additionally, a late exclamation that a character does “radiate self-courage and confidence” registers as one of the most inspired beats of proud idiocy, whether it was a gaffe or planned. A show such as this may be placing itself in the line of fire when it dares to have a character remark on its own proceedings, “I’m finding this evening to be very entertaining!” but Off and On elides the unwanted kind of cringe simply by virtue of how undeniably accomplished it is. To pile one mess atop another with efficiency and pace is an art form that Cawood and co have down. Perhaps next time, they can take it in a direction more fully their own.

Ultimately, this affectionate homage to classic farce is a lively, appropriately relentless romp that impressively sustains itself to the end. If its clearly closely studied approximation of the form can risk airlessness, its confidence and the charisma of its cast are promising indicators that Right Track Theatre may only just be getting started.

Thomas Messner
Photo: Courtesy of Bridewell Theatre

Off and On is at Bridewell Theatre until 18^th August 2025. For further information or to book, visit the theatre’s website here.