I have to hand it to the cast of this week’s Corpus lateshow. Judging by the reactions of everybody in the theatre, myself included, this sketch show was everybody’s kind of funny. It offers up a group of ‘fresh faces’, although all are relatively experienced thespians of Cambridge’s dramatic scene, who have all the charisma and chemistry needed to make up a brilliant collective troupe. I was particularly impressed by the adeptness with which the actors tackled the musical elements of the production. Its opening song, although almost in danger in its first verse of falling into the trap of both the clichéd and the slightly nauseating (let’s just say it opens with a harmonized ‘hello folks’, complete with jazz hands), quickly diverts along the path of politically correct hilarity. In fact, by far the best sketches of the night were the ones that included painfully witty, flawlessly performed musical monologues, including Freddie Crossley’s delightful turn as a red-faced, West Country farmer, bent on marital revenge.

On the whole, I was also remarkably impressed by the carefully thought-out nature of the show. They had clearly taken great pains to maintain variety and spontaneity throughout, with longer, more developed sketches interspersed by quick one-liners, aforementioned musical interludes and painstakingly crafted stop-frame shorts, which animated, to great amusement, puns and idioms. At no moment was the audience allowed to resign themselves to boredom or the comforting knowledge of what would happen next. The projector and screen, which dominated the relatively bare stage, was used, to great effect, to display hilarious home-made shorts, including one in which the whole cast performed a song using only their facial expressions.

As for the performers themselves and their material, they were, for the most part, exceptional. Laura Ayres deserves a special mention for her unfailingly amusing bright-eyed-and-bubbly style. As well, Ben Pope particularly stood out in one turn as ‘The Twat’, with his superbly honed upper middle class accent and mannerisms and his spiel on the joys of avocadoes versus the danger of carbs. There were a few lesser moments in which general awkwardness was resorted too in an effort to create comedy, but for the most part, the performances managed to withstand falling into the trap of caricature. On that note, the material and subject matter of all the sketches should of course be mentioned for its remarkable novelty. Yes, there were the more staple gripes at racism, vanity and, as already mentioned, the middle classes, but the take on these generally possessed enough ingenuity to make sure you didn’t feel you were watching something you had seen parodied a hundred times before. There were such a deal of innovation, satanic school children, ballet-dancing stalkers and penguins paid to convince people they’re mad to leave even the most sceptical audience member satisfied.