The 23-Hour Sketch Show was a originally concept of Eggbox Comedy founders, Zak Ghazi-Torbati and Lewis Brierly, to team-up aspiring Cambridge comedians with Footlight members to create five, 12 minute long mini-sketch shows resulting from 23-hours of frantic following  a midnight brief. The show was a sell-out success in Michaelmas 2016, featuring many Fresher comedians in their first term at Cambridge who now make-up the current Footlights Committee including Alex Franklin, Leo Reich and Ania Magliano.

"I think that’s a really important aspect of the changing Cambridge comedy scene: demystifying the process a bit and reminding everyone that really we’re all just students"

Producer, Alex Watson, also a performed in the original show and has big plans for its revival. She intends to use the format as a fun way to get students with great enthusiasm but varying levels of experience involved in sketch comedy. This is reflected in her casting for the show which ranges from Impronauts, current Footlights, panel-show veterans and musical-comedians to performers who have never written a sketch before or Freshers making their debut on the ADC stage. Watson says what unites the selection of comedians was the enthusiasm they brought to their auditions:  “it’s always great when someone comes in with something they’ve written and you just sit back and in enjoy it, completely forgetting you're auditioning them, or when someone reads a sketch you wrote many years ago and totally transforms it through their charisma as a performer.”

The revival is sticking closely to the format of the original show, each team of six receiving a brief on the day of the show including a theme, stage direction, line, item and prop budget to use in their 12-minute sketch show. All of the five shows will be linked together by Footlight co-hosts Emma Plowright and Bella Hull in what promises to be a surreal and hilarious evening. Watson reflects “in my show we had the theme ‘Growth’ and needed to include broccoli in one of the sketches - this naturally involved spending the £20 prop budget on broccoli and dumping it onto the ADC stage at the end of our show. It was good thing our team was on last.” Current Footlight member Laura Cameron will be making a return to the show which she participated in as a Fresher. “‘I loved the 23 hour Sketch Show when I did it in my first year because it felt like a crash course into how you even begin to write comedy. I met some of my favourite people through it and it was just a really silly, great introduction to writing sketches, that I’d never had before. Now being a Footlight it feels great to be able to help other new comedians get the same experience and I think that’s a really important aspect of the changing Cambridge comedy scene: demystifying the process a bit and reminding everyone that really we’re all just students, trying something out for fun.”

Taking place at 11PM on March 14th, the 23-Hour Sketch show is promises to be a great way to unwind after term has ended and watch other people cope in a Cambridge essay-crisis style context. With such short-time period to write and a great, diverse cast of comedians the only thing guaranteed from this project 60 minutes of hilarious, new comedy for your enjoyment.