If you’ve never experienced the sublime silliness of LipService, now’s your chance as they make a welcome return to the Torch Theatre with a brand new show, Strangers On A Train Set.

Challenging a youth to turn down his music, Irene Sparrow, inventor of the left-handed crochet hook finds herself under suspicion of murder after the train emerges from a tunnel with the young man dead.

But this is no ordinary train, each passenger is reading a book, each book is a portal into a parallel universe of train related crime fiction…

Using a mixture of live action on stage and clever use of projected sequences and model train sets, Strangers On A Train Set takes the audience on a whistle-stop tour of train-related crime fiction, referencing locomotive crime dramas from Brief Encounter to Murder on the 4.50 from Paddington that will leave you breathless and racing for the refreshment coach.

Britain's favourite literary lunatics, LipService’s Maggie Fox and Sue Ryding, have been writing and performing since 1985. Strangers On A Train Set is their 21st production. Past productions include: Very Little Women, a comic version of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women; Aga Saga Women on the Verger; Move over Moriarty, an impenetrable case for Holmes and Watson, and most recently Mr Darcy Loses the Plot.

Described by The Independent as “literary specialists and comedy duo par excellence” LipService have toured nationally and internationally, with a reputation for their high quality and idiosyncratic comic take on popular culture. They have written 18 original comedies for the stage, and have twice won the Critics’ Award for Comedy and the Stage Door Foundation Award.

As well as their work on the stage, they had their own series on Radio 4 – nominated for a Writer’s Guild Award.

Strangers On A Train Set will be performed at the Torch Theastre on Friday, February 14.

Tickets are available from the box office on 01646 695267 or through the torchtheatre.co.uk website.