Footlights Smoker

ADC Theatre, 31st January, 11pm, £6-7

[rating: 4/5]

BOSH. BING. And BANG. Three words that any (probably) sane individual would use to describe this week’s Smoker. Maybe. With performances that left the crowd giggling themselves silly throughout the whole show this was a tour de force, a slam dunk, a great success for the Cambridge Footlights. Their recipe for this stellar achievement? Pure, solid gold comedic genius. And good jokes.

With strong performances from the battle-scarred faces of Phil Wang, Pierre Novellie and Ali Lewis it was no wonder that we couldn’t contain ourselves.

There were a great range of roles on display from these Footlights stalwarts. At one end of the comedy spectrum there were sexualised office men drenching themselves in coffee in time to Marvin Gaye’s dulcet tones. At the other there were little men trapped inside a personified Google having their top 10 most searched items recited to them… 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, redtub, redtbeu and redtube. Beautiful stuff.

What really made this smoker a bit different, however, was the standard of performances from those not on the Footlights committee. The best of these included some questionable Spanish accents from Alex MacKeith and Harry Michell, humping rabbits, Michell’s pervy old men in elitist Christmas Tree outlets and Jamie Mathieson’s comparisons of Jesus to our mothers. Yes. Our mothers. But there were two acts that truly excelled. The first was a double act mock audition, in which an aspiring actor used his suspiciously life-like script as a ploy to shout abuse at the confused director, was mind-blowing and left the audience reeling.

The other, ending the show with a resounding bang, was the final skit in which we were given a rendition of Mick Campbell’s family’s meltdowns over Christmas cooking. I don’t know if it was his stunning Irish accent, or impressive switch between impersonating his various family members that made it all the funnier but, for me, it was the strongest piece of the evening.

So all in all, a smokin’ hot performance from this week’s Smoker and a fantastic night to remind you what Cambridge comedy is all about – let’s hope there’s a lot more where this came from.