In true Smoker spirit, the Wolfson Howler featured a broad spectrum of comic talent, from the disgracefully bad to the sensationally good. Thankfully, the balance swung in favour of talent, and the whole ragbag was held together by the cordial yet razor-sharp compèring of Nish Kumar. Kumar riffed off the crowd’s energy, reeling in some hearty (though always slightly guilty) laughs as he boisterously accused the crowd of casual racism, and then responding in kind (“I’m a big fan of white people. Big fan.”)

For those of you that missed last night’s Howler, I have one very good reason for attending the next: the Wolfson College Bar. Not only did the bar itself start serving just as the clock struck comedy, but the room itself feels like an actual bar, and did half of Kumar’s work in limbering up the crowd. But I digress.

Ian Samson got the gig off to a slow start: a self-confessed creep, his opening incest-related gambit was tediously teenage, as was his intense nervousness. Things began to pick up with Charlie Palmer, though he didn’t do himself any favours by admitting to recycling material, not that this wasn’t obvious from the six months out-of-date subject matter. Finishing off this trio of mediocrity was James Mitchell, who mistakenly thought he could sell himself as both camp and faintly homophobic.

And then there was Liam Williams. The first comic I ever saw perform in Cambridge, Williams has ripened with age, fermenting his cynical brand of comedy to the point of being brilliantly disturbed. He currently sits somewhere between Gomez Adams and Basil Fawlty, rummaging in his mental toy box and throwing out a “burgeoning porn addiction”, technologically-induced anxiety and suicidally low serotonin levels (though of suicide, he says he’ll “never get round to it”). Insanity has never been so irresistible.

As much as I loved the grown-up comedy club atosphere at Wolfson, however, I could have done without two intervals. Having not done my homework, I had presumed Liam Williams was the headline act, and was therefore surprised when Nish Kumar leapt back onstage for round three. Others whose bedtime had clearly long past even got up and left -big mistake.

Perhaps the most prestigious comic I have seen in Cambridge to date, the support act for Simon Amstell’s most recent UK tour, winner of So You Think You’re Funny and Guardian One To Watch (I could go on), Daniel Simonsen was an absolute killer. His Norwegian accent was so thick that at first I was convinced it was part of the outfit. Turned out it was just another string to his quirky Scandinavian bow; and in fact when he deadpanly suggested he was Norway’s best comedian, it was clear most of the room believed him. Punctuating his otherwise muted comedy, the occasional quasi-psychotic outburst kept the audience on its toes. The Howler’s lesson was obvious: mental instability is the new funny.