Beluga is brought to us by Footlights regular Jordan Mitchell, and he slips into his production with the assuredness and experience of a whale entering its preferred feeding ground. Put simply, it was a very fun evening of clowning and really just a smorgasbord of sketches, skits and enjoyable rambling. However, that wouldn’t quite do justice to the energy and stage presence of Mitchell’s physical comedy, which was really the highlight of the show.

You could probably say that about 40% of the production was focused on whales and maybe 10% on the majestic beluga whale, which probably struck the right balance. For while much of the material on whales was genuinely very interesting, watching animations of the evolution of the whale wasn’t exactly comedy that made you cry with laughter, however pithy the accompanying commentary was. Mitchell was good at picking up the funny points of real nature videos, of animals we had never heard of, and these episodes had a softly comic feel to them. But the show's greatest laughs came at the points where he played off the physicality of his sketches.

Skits that stood out included ‘Andrew the lobster’, ‘Crab Star Wars’, and ‘The flamingo who wanted to tango’; I suppose ‘The giraffe with vertigo’ also deserves a mention just for the sheer ridiculousness of its portrayal. There was no format for the evening, which enabled us to enjoy a vast array of different comic moments, yet this also led the show to meander somewhat and dip a little in the middle as the audience tired. It was a useful expedient that Jordan brought the audience into the show as well, and forced them (in a good-natured manner) to help with bizarre physical moments, which included assembling a whale on stage and staging a police hold-up with bits of string and chairs. This helped to counter moments where the comedy slowed by giving us fresh and often surprising audience responses. To give credit where credit’s due, the audience responded very readily, also bringing out the best in Mitchell who ad-libbed sharply and wittily over their contributions. Indeed, he was always ready with a quip, ruefully remarking, when a slapstick microphone gag didn’t work, that "the problem with choreographing problems on stage, is that they sometimes go wrong".

In sum, Beluga is one of those shows that, even if it doesn’t win the Perrier Award, is such an enjoyable hour of your time that frankly no one minds; all it needs is a group of people prepared to go to the theatre, laugh, and enjoy themselves.

'Beluga' is being staged on Thursday 8th October at the Corpus Playroom, 9.30pm.

Support Varsity

Varsity is the independent newspaper for the University of Cambridge, established in its current form in 1947. In order to maintain our editorial independence, our print newspaper and news website receives no funding from the University of Cambridge or its constituent Colleges.

We are therefore almost entirely reliant on advertising for funding and we expect to have a tough few months and years ahead.

In spite of this situation, we are going to look at inventive ways to look at serving our readership with digital content and of course in print too!

Therefore we are asking our readers, if they wish, to make a donation from as little as £1, to help with our running costs. Many thanks, we hope you can help!