Between them, Harry Michell and Lowell Belfield lack no quick thinking.  They started ‘I am, I am’, their musical comedy double act, in July 2012, and their first hour opened at the Edinburgh Fringe a mere week later. “It was so last minute, everything was mental,” says Harry. “We’d never written material together before, we’d never done musical comedy before, we were just mates who had nothing to do that summer.”

They weren’t exactly starting from scratch: both had extensive Footlights CVs (Harry was President for the following academic year). Performances on the BBC and in the final of 2013’s Musical Comedy Awards soon followed. As they proved with substantial improvisation and a very natural comedic interaction, they didn’t need very much time to write a show – but even so, this year, they’ve got much more of it, and are previewing their new hour-long performance at the ADC before this year’s Fringe.

So, why the comeback?

“It’s like a treat”, says Harry, of playing to Cambridge audiences. “They get jokes so quickly. A Cambridge audience will get jokes before you finish the punchline.” “They’re very comedy literate”, adds Lowell – although they both know that flattery can only get them so far. “My last ever smoker I failed, and I’m really pleased that that happened”, Harry reminisces. “It’s like, ‘you’re only as good as your last sketch, Michell!’”.

This time round, failure is not on the cards. “We’re trying to make it more interesting this year, and music that’s not just A minor chords.” “It’s very difficult, actually”, says Lowell of the writing process, “putting lots of things in balance.” “But then”, counters Harry, “if you rhyme two things together, it’s always funny.” Musical comedy as a genre plays to their strengths: Lowell arrived in Cambridge with aspirations of becoming “a rock star in a cool band – genuinely, I did – and then when I started playing music in my room people were like, ‘excuse me, I’m revising, can you be quiet?’, and then literally, my dreams died” – and Harry confesses, “I used to just get drunk and go and sit in the Larkum studio, often by myself, and just improvise songs.”

So have the boys grown up since those heady days? “We’re trying to make it – not more mature”, insists Harry, “because it’s a fun show, that’s why we do it.” Those who saw them last time will remember the blue-in-moments London Underground Song. Is cheerful music a good foil for dark humour? Lowell agrees: “Morissey does that, sort of”, and then lapses into snippets of ‘Girlfriend in a Coma’ and ‘Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now’, and at that point I think I ought to leave them.

Throughout our conversation, ‘I am I am’ refer to themselves as ‘a couple of nice guys’, ‘two morons, essentially’, and like Flight of the Concords, except ‘we are just losers who want to be rappers.’ I’m not sure I’ve got a clue what they are – but if this new show could bring me closer to finding out, I’ll be there.

‘I am, I am’ is at the ADC on June 10th at 11pm and at the Gilded Balloon in Edinburgh from 30th July – 25th August at 11:30pm.