They say the secret of good comedy is timing. Tuesday night’s Smoker started quarter of an hour late, but the show was of a consistently high enough quality for that to be excusable.

And whilst the Footlights committee all demonstrated excellent comic timing in their performances, it was the length of their sketches that sometimes meant their ideas weren’t as successful as they could have been. The committee’s numerous short skits were excellent, but could have been more evenly distributed, being kept only as brief interludes between longer pieces, rather than remaining bunched together.

It’s these shorts that were mostly clearly showcasing the many ideas that had undoubtedly come to the performers over the lengthy summer holiday. Consolidated comedy tends to have the biggest impact; some of these short pieces got the biggest laughs.

But some other sketches went on for too long. The idea behind a sketch about ‘shoe tricks’ (a parody of the kinds of lame crazes only kids on adverts dead behind the eyes deem cool) was one of the best ones in the show and featured very good performances from Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen, yet lost impact due to its duration.

Sketches were very much the primary fare. Phil Wang was, as ever, a highly accomplished performer, and was the one of the few bringers of stand-up to the night’s proceedings. The only other stand up performance came from fellow committee member Dannish Babar who proved good, adding a deft touch to the proceedings with the always risky inclusion of audience participation. Wang’s set was a justified and improved variation of material that served him so well at this year’s Chortle Student Comedy Award.

Top character comedy came from one of only two acts not to feature the same identical Footlights crew. One sketch showing an Italian mother beaming with pride for her – at least in her eyes – lothario son, getting the biggest crowd reaction of the night. Abi Tedder excelled in a sketch based on Come Dine With Me. And the show finale – a song about the Footlights’ favourite episode titles of Friends – is worth a mention in print, simply for its sweetly surreal feel.

It is an inevitability that a Cambridge crowd is going to be more receptive to Footlights comedy than any other. But an exciting, youthful abundance of ideas make a good show work anywhere, and this Smoker had just that going for it. The execution of these ideas seems to be currently at a high standard in the Cambridge comedy community, though perhaps still in utero in comparison with Footlights past.

It is a factor that students here remain a reasonably discerning crowd. Everyone in this Smoker was getting most of their writing and performance right.