“I was looking for a staff training day. I found something far stranger.” At the leisure centre, something about the chorine, the whiff of urine and wet floors does something to people. Clagford Leisure Centre is not so much a place of recreation as a pressure cooker of unresolved ego, repressed desire and fluorescent lighting. When equanimous, longstanding manager Michael steps down, the lunatics do not merely take over the asylum. They redecorate it, claim territorial rights over slip hazard signs and begin dry-humping the CPR dummy.

I should have known from the programme notes this would not be a quiet evening.

Written by Ella Jancovich (also director), Maddie Baber and Mila Edensor, At Your Leisure (Centre) is unapologetically sexual, proudly weird and genuinely very funny. The kind of student-written comedy that would make wonks wince and everyone else howl. Set in a small Northern town, it asks what happens when a staff training day becomes embroiled in power rivalries, an inflatable sex doll, Aqua-fit MILF-watching, and mop duelling. Yes, mop duelling. The writers commit to every absurdist impulse without flinching and with complete provocation.

What stops this from being mere provocation is how well-drawn the characters are. Each one pulls the play in a different direction and somehow, against all reasonable expectation, it holds together. The chaos feels earned rather than manufactured, which is harder to pull off than it looks.

“Ridiculous. Unnecessary. Magnificent and petty. I loved it”

Rasputin-esque Nigel, the quasi-deputy manager (Barney Sayburn) is the beating, bewildering heart of the evening. Creepy and endearing in equal measure, somewhere in the vicinity of Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ made flesh. I never anticipated bearing witness to a BDSM doll repurposed as a CPR practice dummy being overzealously dry-humped. And yet there I was. There really is a thirst for anything, especially from Nigel. Who am I to kink-shame?

Joffery (Edwin Fletcher), nepotistically hired by his uncle despite being unable to swim, spends most of the play shirtless and optimistic, hunting for MILFs with the dedication of a man who has genuinely found his calling. He even got the whole audience to stand up and take part in his aqua fit class, a level of commitment that is to be admired.

Evie Wayne played Health and Safety lead Sandra as a consistent raging, brilliant ball of fury. She bulldozes around the stage, keeping a suspicious eye on any potential poolside threat to public decency. Her finest hour is the mop duel against Nigel. Two people, one mop, an entire power struggle condensed into physical comedy. It is the logical conclusion of every petty workplace grievance ever nursed over a lukewarm cup of tea. Ridiculous. Unnecessary. Magnificent and petty. I loved it.

“Sometimes you need a full descent into madness before you can see where the sense was sitting the whole time”

And then there is Nicole. Kitty Fay plays the receptionist with a cheery, unshakeable calm that anchors everything around her without ever drawing attention to the fact that she is doing so. Nicole, the diplomat, the quiet voice of reason, is ultimately appointed manager feels both inevitable and deeply satisfying. Sometimes you need a full descent into madness before you can see where the sense was sitting the whole time.

Megan Hart-Jones deserves a mention for doubling as newbie Daniel and Council Head Vinnie, switching between roles with a swiftness that never once loses the audience. Bede Doe plays Michael with a performance so measured and believable that the chaos which follows feels all the more anarchic by contrast. The retrospective vignettes between Vinnie and retiring manager Michael are a smart structural choice, giving the play’s satire a sharper edge than the silliness alone might sustain.

At Your Leisure (Centre) understands something true about people: that the instinct to claim power does not require grand stages. A swimming pool will do. Power, it turns out, does not need grand architecture. The rivalry, the politicking, the bruised egos circling a laminated staff rota felt uncomfortably close to the truth.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum. And it is an absolute joy to watch.