This year’s annual Footlights show opened with a pretty large bang at the beginning of a two-week run at the ADC, before leaving for a nationwide tour - the annual opportunity for Cambridge comedy to peddle its not inconsiderable wares. The Footlights team invariably have to contend with comparisons to past members and high expectations, but “Wham Bam” looks sure to be as successful as any previous show.

The five-strong cast – decked out in apparel ressembling that of Gap models – perform a series of sketches whose only uniting factor is the brand of easy-going, happy-go-lucky, unpretentious comedy which the Footlights have made their own over the past year. Combining versatility and ingenuity, skits range from a homoerotic inter-stellar voyage to the rigours of circus keyhole surgery. One particularly successful sketch featured a parodic sitcom with an overactive laughter-track, provoking an unusual moment of self-consciousness for the audience as their own amusement was drowned out by the laughter blaring out of the loudspeakers.

Although the style of Footlights comedy lends itself variously to absurdly negligent narrative structures, corpsing, unrecognisable celebrity impressions and bad scene changes, few of these elements manage to dampen the evident raw talent on display. Highlights range from Henry Elliot’s compelling pigeon impression to Tom Sharpe’s complete lack of conviction as Grammy-winning Irish pop sensation Enya and the obvious relish Tom Williams takes from the role of Mr Kipling. Several clever twists paradoxically highlight the only real weakness of the show, a weakness which to many minds would be a strength: that the plots of sketches sometimes rely on ‘randomness’ and so often lack conclusive endings.

As the tour progresses it will be necessary for the actors to develop their natural vitality in order to maximise a spontaneity which was not seen as often as it could have been during “Wham Bam”. The show deserves a look even if only to appreciate the unlikely humorous potential of the sight of millions of dead babies.

But as this might suggest, this year’s Footlights tour show is not exactly the perfect tonic for a week-long hang-over. Hopefully as the cast grows in confidence and starts to play in front of an audience not full of May Ball rejects, the show will truly explode.

Three Stars

Orlando Reade