It’s nerve-wracking sitting on the front row at a comedy night, especially with a pen and paper in hand. The words ‘audience participation’ conjure up awkward scenarios in which my terrible attempts at banter are inevitably bested by a quick-witted comedian. Luckily, compere Ben Pope’s interaction with the audience was limited to ten seconds. ‘How are you?’ he asked, thrusting the microphone in the face of a man on the front row. ‘Good’, said the man, with a clear case of rabbit-in-headlights syndrome. And that was that.

Oddly enough, audience participation turned out to be what made this Corpus Smoker so fun. The acts had varying levels of experience, but Pope’s goofy interludes set an informal atmosphere, and each of the six comedians received a supportive welcome. First up was Ian Samson, whose masochistic jokes verged on bad taste, but who was undoubtedly at his best when most relaxed, confessing to his love of gin and his darkest ‘morning-after’ moments.

Milo Edwards, next, had a tough time getting everyone on board for his ironic lament about the trials of being middle class, despite some incisive observations about Waitrose. Give the guy a break, world! He openly admits he’s ‘more gateau than ghetto’ - and his skit about the deer was really funny. Sophie Williams’ frenetic set about ‘Take Me Out’ revealed a lot of raw nerves and an encyclopaedic knowledge of TV dating shows. ‘Slightly creepy’, I scribbled, as she pulled out a picture of Paddy McGuiness and told us about his intimate evening routine. Slightly creepy, indeed.

The second half of the Smoker featured the more confident performers, with John Payne giving us a hilarious taste of ‘authentic’ Italian culture and some useful phrases for any ex-patriot, including ‘pistols at dawn’. His set was perfectly-timed and brilliantly delivered, complete with ridiculous accents and wild gesticulations, making him one of the stand-out performers of the evening.

Admitting he was hopelessly back-footed by his status as a white, straight man, Jamie Fraser powered through his set regardless and engaged in some ‘tough’, ‘hard-hitting’ critiques about ... juice. Well, it’s important not to get complacent, I guess. After a weird-but-great interlude by Pope about his loved-up parents, Ken Cheng headed to the stage to round off the night.

In a stroke of genius, Cheng left the unnecessary microphone to one side for his surreal routine about ‘nostalgia, time travel, 911 and paedophilia’. Cheng is both funny and ridiculously likeable, and I’m glad all those hours spent scouring the internet for film trivia came in useful. His nerdy musings about the ethics of time-travel paedophilia made a perfect end to a bizarre evening, and I left feeling like I’d been at the kookiest family get-together ever – in a good way.