Footlights SmokerHaydn Jenkins

As a fairly regular attender of the Footlights Smoker, I have observed that, having paid around £6, I’m keen to laugh. Laughter is what I’m looking for, so I seek it out and I find it when it may not even really be there. I laugh harder than I would in most other contexts partly because of this, and partly because I want the performers not to feel shit. I guess that, a few drinks down the line, the same would be confessed by a number of audience members. Despite this, I am very rarely disappointed, and this evening was no exception.

The first Smoker of the year was an introduction to the new committee, and for the year’s debut, I must say that I was fairly impressed. The room was packed, and there were a few seat confusions (“but both our tickets say H3”-type stuff), but eventually the lights dimmed and the show started.

After a slightly lukewarm introduction to the new committee, the first sketch was about ‘Sod’s law’. To quote Sod himself, the theme of the sketch was that “everything is shite!” The content, for the most part, was pretty funny, and flippant statements such as “say you’re following your ex-wife to work” drew cackles from the audience. Sadly, the end of the sketch didn’t quite do justice to what had preceded it. This, as the show went on, seemed to be a recurring theme. 

Another sketch, depicting an oral exam in which the students had to describe work experience at ‘Mr Chicken’s Chicken Factory’, was hilarious because it was completely ludicrous. Word-playing lines such as “his gaze/gays fell upon us, but we fought them off and they retreated” took me a couple of seconds to get (I can be embarrassingly slow) but were much appreciated by the audience.

One of my favourite sketches was the ‘strip tease’ performed by two female committee members. The act began normally and, as it proceeded, they began miming cutting themselves open, disemboweling themselves and using their intestines as sexy lassos. It was entirely wordless but effective. The convergence of ‘sexy’ and ‘vomit-inducing’ proved highly successful and also showcased an impressive level of acting skills.

At one point my own degree was described as “ashiterature”, which I can’t even disagree with, and the committee member suggested that, like books, he liked the “smell and feel of his own cock but he didn’t read it” – so absurd I had to laugh. But, although the show produced an abundance of witty one-liners, at times some of the sketches seemed to lack cogency and, once again, I felt as if the endings could have done with a little more work.

One of the best moments for me, however, was when a referee asked opposing contestants to play “heads or coin rim” (I laugh as I write – how do they come up with these things?). Another involved a committee member playing an international student; he had an unidentifiable accent and said that “his mum was from Sweden and his Dad was from space” – nailed it. There was something so familiar – yet entirely ludicrous – about the sketch.

Some sketches fell a bit flat: there was one about the Black Eyed Peas that I wasn’t crazy about, and another about mayflies which should have been funnier, but needed a bit more work to achieve its full potential.

Overall, despite my willing predisposition just to laugh anyway, I did find the experience highly amusing. I’d give it a solid three and a half stars: it was very entertaining with just a few edges that need smoothing. I was impressed, and am looking forward to what the rest of the year will have to offer.