I wouldn't call myself a gullible person, but when I found myself googling the ‘big-cheese sketch troupe’ S.C.O.F.F and the salacious details of their break up in 2004, I quickly realised I had been thoroughly, as they say, ‘sucked in.’ The clever ruse that sustains this fresh new sketch show gives it a lucid and compelling narrative drive. The Footlights have, grudgingly, invited the 90s has-been comedy group for a comeback tour premiering at the ADC. Of course the problem is, as everyone seems to know, one of the members of the group has found success in Hollywood and was obviously too busy to join her friends in the tour, putting in jeopardy the celebrated ‘tea in Tiananmen’ sketch. It all seems enticingly plausible when the back-story of S.C.O.F.F, told through a hilarious selection of interviews with body language experts and apathetic fans, intersects with recent memory of ADC alumni.

At the heart of the controversy surrounding S.C.O.F.F is the enigmatic Colin (Raphael Wakefield). Wakefield is compelling whenever he is on stage, although he is adept at exquisitely clueless characters including a crestfallen schoolboy reaching to the bottom of his goodie bag and a naïve attendee of the Horoscope Writers Union conference. Collin is disgraced from his celebrity cooking career after an infamous altercation with cheese in a microwave. And the domineering Olive, Eleanor Colville, will not let Collin forget about the affair easily. Colville is also a natural comic actor with an unerring sense of character based comedy, she is deliciously convincing as the proprietor of a struggling candle store, the perfect mix of envy and defensiveness. The seamless integration of the video projection – a mockumentary style history of S.C.O.F.F – was a credit to the director George Kan and cinematographer Rosalind Peters.

Sadly, however, some of the sketches just didn’t have the ingredients to be particularly funny. A dishonourable mention must go to the Australian snack sketch which seemed to consist entirely of, what were I hope reluctant, laughs from the audience drawn out of depictions of Aussies as Neanderthals with ridiculously broad accents. Yes, I am Australian.

The tangerine saga was also unconvincing as it failed to develop the random costume change of David Matthews into a Satsuma superhero into an actual joke. In contrast, the ‘Horoscope Writers Union’ sketch is honed to the right length encompassing pathos toward Wakefield’s tentative but earnest defence of the "ancient Greek origins of astrology". Colin and Fergus were right to quip of the UKIP sketch that it was put in there just to be "political". That said, I doubt anyone in the audience was left unaffected by Sasha Brooks' unfailingly endearing portrayal of the constantly bullied Sally.

Perhaps, it might also be said that the general pattern of some of the sketches seemed to be over reliant on the stale trope of the polite English man trying to negotiate awkward situations, as in the orgy sketch and the NASA sketch. At the same time, the orgy sketch was uproariously funny and was executed with impeccable energy and timing all round.

As much as I would truly like to love this play, the final climax in Tiananmen seemed a little underwhelming and left the show to fizzle out. I felt as though the sketches were not as carefully thought out as the overarching narrative and consequently the show could never quite match its real promise. Nevertheless, the supremely gifted cast were committed to the script from the very start and their high energy performances propelled the show forward. It was on the whole very entertaining.