I am always wary of radio plays being staged.  Putting on a play about what goes on inside a radio is, however, a different matter.  Writers Alec Gibson, John Wallis and Ben Weisz are to be commended for penning one of the most successful pieces of Cambridge student writing I have seen.  Are You Sitting Comfortably? knows exactly what it is – an amusing piece of sickly-sweet fun – and has no pretensions to be otherwise. 

The set, built by co-writer Alec Gibson, is inspired.  Adorned with neat homely touches, it cleverly partitions into AM, FM and the outside world of the radio owner, establishing the vehicle for the cute, poignant, longing separation of the two would-be lovers.  This clever concept makes the plot a convenient repository for sketches, songs and radio puns without any of these zany meanderings feeling intrusive.

The actors’ radio voices are superbly versatile, switching fluidly from Radio 1 to Radio 4 to a local phone-in in Birmingham.  Some of the delivery is a little rushed, especially when more tanked-up sport and DJ styles were being imitated; the audience are left with only the sounds facial expressions to go on in some of the sketches.

Still, Tom Stuchfield’s nervously giggling and desperately useless FM is perfectly matched by Harriet Cartledge’s sweet if heavy-hinting AM.  This is especially true of their date, the best scripted scene in the play.  Meanwhile Marcus Martin is suitably sinister as the meddling Deck.  His characterisation is helped out by excellent costuming and his performance is slimily strong, even if his accents oscillate at random between northern, farmer south-western and American. 

The three leads receive admirable support from the rest of the cast, however much a horrendously choreographed fight scene tries to undermine them.  But moments like this, and some of the more awful jokes, are things to be indulged when a play has been put before you simply to entertain.