Tickets Please

We're on the 9.20am from Paddington to Exeter in Mark Maier's new sitcom, an Upstairs Downstairs of rail travel. Robin (Jeremy Swift) is the train manager, trying to keep order while his private life crumbles. There's a flirtatious girl on the refreshment trolley, a self-obsessed buffet attendant, a proper restaurant car with an old-fashioned steward and a frantic female chef. They all fancy each other in a circle of comically doomed expectations. The passengers are daft, dumb and cross. In other words, it's distinctly well observed.