This week, the research community of Cambridge and wider shires has been truly uprooted by the results of a recent control group of non-men, which seems to suggest that women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people are equally as competent as their cis male counterparts when it comes to the production and performance of laugh out loud comedy.

Researchers made this groundbreaking discovery through the application of a two step plan: 1) letting people who aren’t men speak 2) listening to them. They have since fostered the growth of their subjects - a control group of 10 not-men - through a radical holistic process known as ‘writing and rehearsals’, a further methodology which revolves around the same two step speaking-and-listening framework. 

"They have since fostered the growth of their subjects through a radical holistic process known as ‘writing and rehearsals'"

In one cosmic leap forward for the cognitive research field, the project has conclusively found non-men to be capable not only of ‘understanding jokes’ but of ‘making them’, able to engage in ‘improvisation games’ and - most bewilderingly of all - ‘satirical character comedy’. In fact, the study controversially seemed to suggest non-men to be capable of all that men are in the umbrella of comedic enterprise. Some evidence has even suggested - much to the dismay of some prominent members in the field - that they perform the same tasks to a higher standard.  

Not only this, but there is evidence that the subjects are able to perform a variety of comedic characters, and contrary to popular belief, not just make jokes about the topic of men. In the final showcasing of our research (from the 1st to the 4th December, ADC Theatre), the audience will be able to observe characters ranging from a witch prosecutor, a hairdresser with a fascination for baldness (and indeed, boldness), a dog walker wanting to expand her business to include wild zoo animals, a subversive Bond Girl, a not-so-fantastically plastic Barbie, and an aspiring fashion editor. 

"Some evidence has even suggested that non-men perform the same tasks to a higher standard"

Even more, the audience will see non-men coming together in surprising unity, in the form of comedic duologues - a survival guide to being queer at a straight girls’ sleepover, two female writers receiving a pretentious book award and an insight into the therapy work of the charity, ALTW, ‘Actually Listening To Women’. 

Unfortunately, the research team was unable to find any non-men funny enough to present these subjects in the showcase, but the much-admired business person, bestselling author, and all-round icon, widely known as The Man, has humbly taken on the task. 

This will be a vibrant event, in which subjects will have the opportunity (in either monologue or duologue form) to exhibit evidence of their engagement in comedic practice. In an unprecedented turn of events, the subjects will have five (or perhaps closer to six, in some cases) whole minutes to ‘perform’, entirely interrupted and with no opportunity for rebuttal or the explanation of their own jokes back to them (Editor’s note: surely this can’t be right?). It certainly promises to be a spectacle, if nothing else.