Having high expectations is not a good way to entire a show, but some things cannot be helped. Harry Michell’s ability to make an audience cry with laughter simply by presenting them with a poorly drawn number one is one of the few parts of the Footlights and Friends Smoker – if you could call it that – to fulfil my expectations.

However, many of the one liners were rather pointless and left many people laughing more at the painful facial expressions pulled by the cast than the content of the jokes themselves. Telling people not to laugh is always a sure way to get them to, and indeed there was much laughter throughout the show; but not much of it was down to the material. The timing of the opening scene paved the way for several instances which looked like they had been thrown together as a vaguely scripted improv sketch. Perhaps they were.  

Shouting “Scotland” repeatedly whilst trying to advertise that you can pay for your visit in dead ferrets again did get a lot of laughs but – let’s face it – isn’t very funny. However, the Bristol Revunions definitely had enthusiasm where they might have lacked originality. Referring to David Attenborough’s Africa as “high definition monkey porn” and presenting a witness protection program entitled Family Misfortunes were some of the highlights in what looked like a well rehearsed set. 

Opening with “Are you having a good time?” threw me into a false sense of disenchantment with the Leed’s Tealights. Here is a group each of which can stand on their own and there was no obvious weak link where there had been in the previous two acts. Their chat show ‘gone wrong’ sketch and the final scene in which ridiculous voices and a face covered in pâté  were the punch lines were well performed, with all of the cast maintaining poise despite raucous laughter from the crowd.

Perhaps if I’d picked up a drink at the bar I would have seen more of the humour in it all. But, saying that, I did laugh, and mostly out loud.