This is my first visit backstage at the ADC, but I am more interested than nervous to meet a high calibre cast without the fourth wall between us. 

The common room is an absolute tip but full of character, and while some cast members mill around and others wander in, it is clear that George Potts, the stand-out actor in all his shows last term, particularly as Captain Hook in the Footlights Panto, is on another level. 
He has his producer in fits with an anecdote about his false economy of buying a self-assemble bike from Toys ‘R’ Us.  Jason Forbes arrives lastand is the only one not to take his lead from George throughout the interview.

With the addition of Ryan O’Sullivan, the others were all involved in Now Now, which sold out the Corpus Playrooms as the hottest comedy ticket of Michaelmas 2010.  Being back together is “kind of a treat really” for George but inevitable according to director Ahir Shah: “We’ve never really left each other’s company”.

I ask whether to expect more of the same and get a strong shake of the head from Jason: “We’ve all developed our own styles now.”  Pick Me Up is “more whole”, says Ahir.  While I am promised a sketch show above all, some links have developed naturally through writing and drafting; but these “happened by accident”, so will hopefully be funny rather than stilted.  Will the venue also make a difference?  Ahir denies that Corpus and the ADC require different writing styles, but the two offer contrasting experiences: there is an intimacy to the Playrooms, says Lowell Belfield, but safety at the ADC in the invisible blob of an audience.

Now Now was funny.  Odds, the Footlights Spring Revue, was not, and George is the only cast member not to have sullied himself with it.  Jason sees Pick Me Up as a chance for “redemption”: the writing team tried to fit the project around many others, resulting in a script hastily thrown together and only redrafted during rehearsals.  “We’ve spent so long writing this,” Jason assures me, “it’s going to be much better.”

Despite their varied portfolio, comedy appeals most to the cast.  Still, the pressure of comic acting is greater they claim, as the audience “knows you want to make them laugh”.  Even in the run-up to Now Now, they admit to a sense of despondency when final rehearsals no longer felt funny. I ask whether performing in week one, so early in the term, adds to the challenge, but Ryan claims that it is actually “quite exciting”.  They hope to start on a high without extended pressure looming over them: “We’ll get it out of the way – then we’ll be able to sleep again,” explains Ahir.I wonder how they find time to balance theatre with their degrees.  “We don’t,” is the universal response, and George concedes that he may therefore have to be an actor: “I’ve got no choice really, that or the priesthood.”

Pick Me Up is the Week 1 ADC lateshow, 11pm, Wednesday 25th – Saturday 28th January.