Upon entering the Corpus Playroom with my ticket for Toucan, I was greeted by tennis balls bemusedly placed between my seat, and a makeshift coconut shy under the lights of the stage. Cue a frenzy of tennis balls lurched at the coconuts, sharp inhales of breath as some cut just past the target, & laughter as their defeat is lamented. Before the show had begun, it was evident that this mixture of audience interaction, the stereotypically exotic and utmost absurdity from Footlighters Guy Emanuel, Sam Grabiner, Jordan Mitchell and Theo Wethered would deliver an hour of howls and titters.

"Welcome to Hotel Toucana," Wethered greets us, upon a stage draped with naff blue paisley curtains, illustrations of toucans hanging from a table with a crock pot on it, and the type of unusual modern art that you tend to find in hotels. While the titular bird does not make an appearance, the cacophony of guests and employees, from a French chef and his orang-utan helper to a pretentious thespian directing (and producing) ‘Wildstar: The Armada of Cosmic Stingrays’, erases all pre-expectations.

While the sketches came quickly, the material within each ensured that they neither felt too rushed nor too slow. The combination of Emanuel’s chef, Mitchell’s lanky primate arms and Grabiner’s buzzing waiter creating audience picked dishes from a lettuce, a product placement Coca-Cola and other items that probably shouldn’t be in a kitchen, was a delight. Although rather irrelevant to the thematic of the production, Mitchell’s human lamp questioning his performance’s relation to the world, amidst rebukes from Wethered’s storyteller, is a raucous stab at the overly analytical realm of theatre.

However, some pieces did feel flat – the running ‘pool boy’ gag lost its momentum, and the alcohol fuelled revelry between The Jungle Book characters was simply bizarre – and the scene transitions were a tad uninspired (radio advertisements for the Mafia and dogs, although witty, do not do much to distract from the sight of four men dusting food off the floor for a while). An issue with the television sets halted the production for a time, and it may have dismantled the vibe of the show if it wasn’t for Mitchell’s hilariously ad-libbed voiceover while the predicament was being resolved. A thought that the video perhaps wasn’t worth the effort was eradicated completely after it began to play: a wonderfully creative segment as well as a sneak peak of the finished product of ‘Wildstar: The Armada of Cosmic Stingrays’ deemed the technical issues largely inconsequential.

Toucan is one hour of riotous entertainment that, though inconsistent at times, proves the comedic talent of its performers. The inventiveness of the majority of the sketches, as well as its commitment to its play upon exotic hotel culture, reassures that Cambridge comedy is in good, orang-utan hands. 

Toucan runs until Saturday 24th October at the Corpus Playroom, 9.30pm.