“I’d just like to say that I think this whole experience has been one of friendship”. This is not the opening remark of the Footlights Presents: Pen Pals cast, but the one that comes when I prod them for final comments on their show experience. It’s delivered by Emmeline Downie with deep sincerity, but the resulting howls of laughter from her fellow cast members – as well as Director Molly Stacey and Assistant Director Ania Magliano-Wright – tell me that it’s only half serious, and almost certainly an inside joke of some kind. Much of the couple of hours I spend observing the cast of this sketch show is passed similarly. Predictably for seven of Cambridge’s best and most seasoned comedians, what they love to do the most is laugh – and they never hesitate to. In fact, directing on Stacey’s part during this rehearsal seems, amusingly, like controlling a group of very enthusiastic and capable children.

“We keep them on a tight leash,” she tells me, and though we’re talking about how they decide what jokes eventually make it into the final run of the show, I get the sense that it applies in other contexts too. The job of a director in a sketch show, I’m informed, is broadly different to directing an already scripted show.

“In comedy you always need an extra eye,” says Magliano-Wright. “Not necessarily one of any particular skill, just one that has a different point of view and different ideas.” Both her and Molly came onto the show after material had already begun to be written, making their work less about creative control and more about leading the conversations which, when you put the entire cast together, seem to always be in full flow.

“Whether singing, dancing, or delivering sharp one-liners, the ‘Pals’ take to their work with unmitigated enthusiasm”

Footlights Presents is one of four big shows funded by the Cambridge Footlights in a year, and thus provides audiences with the rare and exciting occurrence of a high-budget sketch show on the stage of the biggest theatre in town. This is a fact of which the cast of Pen Pals are keenly aware and excited to take full advantage of, in ways that vary from ordering their own embroidered polo shirts for costume to having recruited two musicians (Laurence T-Stannard and Finlay Stafford) to help bring their show to life. Skilled as they are, the two-person band brings a wonderful musicality to the songs written for the show, and they take particular joy in translating the performers’ gut feelings into harmony and melody. The result is songs such as ‘Dear Pen Pal’ and ‘One Night Stand’ which elevate themselves beyond ‘sketch songs’ to music that is witty both lyrically and musically speaking.

With plenty of time ahead of opening night, Pen Pals is still very much a work in progress, but that’s not to say that every performer doesn’t have a deep understanding on what they want their audience to be feeling like after walking out of the ADC at midnight.

“Wholesome LOLs,” says Bella Hull concisely. “LOLsome,” Downie appends, even more concisely. “It’s about friendship,” elaborates Noah Geelan – and that’s the buzzword that gets them all going, each expanding further with their own words that link back to key ideas of friendship, loneliness, connecting and reconnecting. It’s a theme for a sketch show that is pleasantly light and yet somehow also serious, and rather earnest. To channel it through the concept of letter-writing made sense because of how versatile they are as a format – you can say anything in a letter, Geelan tells me.

Looking at the sheer amount of sketches that the performers have come up with (the most she’s ever seen for a sketch show, Stacey says, shaking her head with disbelief), it’s clear to see that this broadness has certainly translated into words on paper. Each performer has their own monologue, in addition to sketches of various forms – songs, shorts, ‘vox pops’ (short one-liners to throw at the audience), and sketches with intriguing titles such as ‘Gareth of Unlimited Potential’ and ‘The Queen gets a Buzz Cut’.

The group of minds – which, in addition to Noah Geelan, Bella Hull, and Emmeline Downie, is comprised of Will Bicknell-Found and Leo Reich – that have worked to put these together each have their own quirks and skills, but all share pleasure in subverting that which will be familiar to their audience, as well as portraying situations that are all too relatable (the song ‘One Night Stand’, which I receive a performance of, is particularly hilarious for this reason).       

Whether singing, dancing, or delivering sharp one-liners, the ‘Pals’ take to their work with unmitigated enthusiasm and palpable love and affection for each other and the work that they’ve created together. “Thank you, Footlights, for presenting us!” Leo declares half-jokingly. But the pleasure is bound to be all theirs, and that of any audience who take an hour out of their evening to partake in the ‘wholesome LOLs’ that this group have created.

Footlights Presents: Pen Pals is on at 11pm at the ADC Theatre 31 January – 3 February