Corpsing. Drunken heckling. Missed cues. Muffled lines. Innuendo. Ham. It Runs in the Family, this year’s Emmanuel College Freshers’ Play was amateur dramatics with the emphasis on amateur. To judge it purely on theatrical merit, though, wouldn’t be true to the spirit of the thing. After all, it was freshers largely playing to freshers (and drunk freshers at that) in a third-filled theatre, with the most ridiculous play I have ever come across. In the end, it was a lot of fun, but best steered away from if you’re after high art or slick performances.

The plot revolved around a neurologist, Dr Mortimer, who is about to give the most important lecture of his life to a group of 500 neurologists, that may acquire him a knighthood. His wife is overbearing. His fellow doctors, Connelly and Bonnie, are disruptive. And his superior is threatening. At exactly this stressful moment, in walks Nurse Tate, a previous nurse at the hospital, with whom he had an affair 18 years ago. She reveals she bore him a son who, informed of his parenthood on his eighteenth birthday, is now rampaging through the hospital searching for his father. With people and pressure descending from all angles, Dr Mortimer begins to tell lies – ‘if you’re going to tell a lie, tell a whopper’ – and soon they mount up…

Let’s be honest, a lot of the acting was fairly wooden. Caricatures were rife and hammily delivered lines abounded. The exception of Dr Mortimer, whose exaggerated exasperation was convincing and often very funny. She (yes, she – it was an almost entirely female cast so a lot of male parts were gallantly taken on by women) was also the one member of the cast who managed largely to remain in character throughout. Unfortunately, this was not the case generally, as we saw when lines were forgotten and instead replaced by the word ‘fuck’, when sound effect cues were missed and characters had to fill in the noises of phones going off, when certain characters bounded offstage winking to the front row.

But, I think, this added to the spirit and, indeed, comedy of what was meant to be a fairly ramshackle evening. There is no doubt that the ridiculous exaggeration of everything was enjoyed by both audience and cast. My one criticism that does stick would be that the play was too long. I was not expecting an interval, and when it came, my heart sunk a little at the thought of another half of what had been an adequate but hastily assembled half of entertainment. Like the hospital pantomime that is allegedly being organised by Dr Connelly, this play clearly relied largely on outlandish props, poor jokes (the son on discovering his father – ‘he’s got my genes’, ‘well take them home and wash them then!’) and a communal sense of silliness. Avoid if you have a serious disposition.