Exams are looming. There’s an election around the corner. The weather has been awful. And to top it all off, the ADC is about to go on its Easter term break. Everything has been a bit miserable recently, and opportunities for laughs are thinning rapidly.

But, it’s not completely hopeless. There are still a few chances to experience some comic relief before exam season, one of them being Fundamentally, A Stand-Up Show. This relaxed ADC late-show saw Ruby Keane and Raphael ‘Raph’ Wakefield take to the ADC stage to perform, you guessed it, stand-up comedy.

"Ruby brings something fresh and exciting to the stage every time she performs."

Ruby opened the show in her typical absurdist style. Utterly surreal and with a knack for unusual similes, random connections or just downright weird observations, Ruby brings something fresh and exciting to the stage every time she performs. Her description of synaesthesia as something like ‘an asteroid hitting Hertfordshire and causing it to rain toenails in Glasgow’ is the kind of image that is so strange, it can’t help being funny.

Raph meanwhile, is a much more narrative style comedian, choosing to tell stories about buying shoes, and musing on such topics as his attempts to gain Portuguese citizenship, and the possibility of Diane Abbott in the Tardis. Some of his strongest moments were when he delivered readings of some incredibly witty fake news articles he had written.

"Both performers are assured and talented comics, and seemed very comfortable on stage and in their personal styles."

Both performers are assured and talented comics, and seemed very comfortable on stage and in their personal styles. As student comedy is, ultimately, entirely experimental, it is a great place to hone and develop an individual style and these performers have clearly made excellent use of that opportunity.

Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a huge amount binding the performances into a show; it felt rather thrown together. Hit hard - as quite a few shows seem to be - by the general tendency of audiences to stay at home during exam term, it was very apparent in the room that the majority of the crowd was a personal friend or acquaintance of one or both performers. This wasn’t necessarily a detriment to Ruby and Raph, but, from the outside, this can sometimes be alienating as the jokes are not necessarily for you. Some of the more niche references to producing comedy in Cambridge or the political affiliations of Sam Knights, were also not necessarily well known to all, unless you’ve seen a lot of comedy, and very specifically Cambridge comedy.

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That’s not to say that the show wasn’t funny, or that Keane and Wakefield are not excellent comedic performers. Both have very different but very secure styles, and delivered relaxed performances. Overall, I think they just needed a little more time, and perhaps an external director, to add that extra cohesive element that would bring the best bits of the material into a tighter structure