Matt and Marc’s Shot in the Dark is predicated on the potentially brilliant idea of a comedy routine performed entirely in the dark. A comedy routine designed to be heard but not seen, however, is less funny in a murky half light: the suggestion that you are being showered with mucus and saliva by the comedian sneezing on stage is slightly ruined if the man standing in front of you with a spray bottle full of water is plainly visible. I may have been sitting in an unfortunately bright section of the audience, but watching somebody throw pieces of fabric into the raked seating while creating a strip-tease soundscape is not exactly knee-slappingly hilarious.

There were some promising highlights in the first half, which opened with a brilliant set from stand-up comic Jamie Fraser, and later featured a set that showcased a series of deliberately atrocious one-liners. On eliciting a wail from an amused but despairing audience member near the back, the comedian occupying the stage pointed out that “groaning is the same as laughing…but for wankers”. An improvised song proved very entertaining, mainly on the basis of its intentionally appalling rhymes, and there was a spoof of phone-in radio programme that, while extremely funny, bore a troubling resemblance to sections from Adam and Joe’s BBC 6Music show.

The hosts themselves were disappointingly slow-paced, and ran through a collection of clichéd, ill-judged material. Jeff Carpenter, on the piano in the dark, delivered consistently elevating and impressive musical contributions, but wasn’t quite enough to save the eye-wateringly unfunny sketch structured around “Oscar the Octopus” and his application to university as an “overseas” student, or the numerous routines based on the fact that it is apparently always amusing to imitate sexual intercourse by breathing heavily into a microphone. Luckily we were saved from any awkward silences by the rest of the performers, who bellowed with laughter at their cast-members jokes for the duration of the show. To host a smoker in the dark is undeniably an exciting idea, but the poor quality of the comedy on offer left us in a semi-darkness that was vaguely snooze-worthy, and certainly more conducive to lethargy than laughter.