Comedy icon Alexei Sayle continues his series of rail journeys across the country with a trip from Shrewsbury to Pwllheli on the Cambrian coast line.

Alexei’s mission is to break the golden rule of travelling by train and actually talk to his fellow passengers, in a quest for conversations with strangers that will reveal their lives, hopes, dreams and destinations.

Along the way, Alexei holds a finger into the wind of the thoughts and moods of the great British travelling public. There’s humour, sadness and surprise as people reveal what is going on in their lives and, as Alexei passes through familiar towns and cities, he also delves into his own personal stories of a childhood in Liverpool and a long career as a comedian, actor and author.

Alexei has a life-long ticket to ride in his DNA, as his father was a railway guard. As a child, Alexei travelled on trains with his mum and dad, not only in the UK but also abroad. While other children in Liverpool at the time thought a trip to Blackpool was a big adventure, Alexei travelled to Paris, experienced the Orient Express, had summer holidays in Czechoslovakia and visited mysterious cities with unpronounceable names in the farthest corners of Europe.

In this programme, among his many fellow travellers, Alexei miraculously finds Barry, an old school friend from Liverpool; Denise, who has been given an extraordinary set of directions in order to deal with the complex arrangements for her holiday; Geoff, who on a whim, decided to buy one of the UK's oldest cinemas, in a tiny Welsh seaside town; Isabel, who is off to monitor dolphins - and Margaret, who has been going to the same spot on the Cambrian coast for her holiday every year for more than 50 years - and now her extended family is following the same tradition. Show less