I like laughing, like it a lot. I like comedy too, especially when it makes me laugh. So I was looking forward to this smoker. And, you know what? It was pretty much ok. Good, sometimes. And occasionally it was throat-damagingly brilliant. The Virgin Smoker, despite having an unpleasantly evocative epithet, is actually comprised of people who haven’t performed their own material before. So firstly, having the chutzpah to audition and to make it to the stage it pretty impressive. In my first week three, I was still finding it difficult to brave the downstairs bathroom – these guys done good.

They were introduced by three mini-skits from the committee about doing things for the first time, but from then on in their slight contribution was overshadowed by a rollicking cohort of Freshers and a few older people who were trying new things.  We kicked off with Jonathon Beilby (from Oldham), who was at his most winsome when he was being self-deprecating and staying away from the rape jokes, before Juliet Griffin & co’s sketch about nappies brought the first belly laughs of the night. There were a couple of absolutely genius sketches dotted throughout the night, including a sketch that began in extra-marital sex and ended in an airing of far more tawdry laundry, and the laughter it elicited inflicted some proper suffering on my exhausted vocal chords.

Perhaps it was because the sketches have more scope for variation than first time stand-up that they stood out a little more; amongst others, the Bird Club skit seemed to be channelling Ben Ashenden and was absolutely inspired. That said, a seemingly po-faced comic called Ciaran Chillingworth was unreasonably funny – I couldn’t quite put my finger on why his story about a china shop not selling potatoes, delivered in a monotone, was absolutely brilliant, but it  unquestionably was.  Another stand-up, Milo Edwards, was an assured stage presence and deserves kudos for making the words ‘somewhat their modus operandi’ a workable punchline.

An erratic tech during the first half of the show left a couple of bemused performers having to wander offstage in absence of a neat end to their material and made a few claps a bit awkward, but that shouldn’t get in the way of what was a pretty solid night. The weird and surreal thrived; from Ariel Liquitabs to lecturers on fear, and I didn’t mind losing my voice for laughing so much. Nice one, Freshers.