Footlight Mark Bittlestone’s Pity Laughs doesn’t sound like your average hour of Cambridge comedy. It remains to be seen whether it will look, smell and taste like one, but the publicity suggests not. An excerpt from the ADC blurb reads: ‘Which is worse? Losing both your parents in awful circumstances or being gay? Sadly, Mark Bittlestone doesn't have the luxury of choice.’

“Appalling? Maybe. You’ve been warned”

A friend of mine who doesn’t know Mark asked if Pity Laughs involved an invented tragic character. Keen to refute this claim, Mark presents me with his parents’ death certificate (singular) to prove that he is indeed an orphan. Will Dalrymple, one of the directors, is here too – signalling to me that Mark, if not actually gay, is at least keen to include gay men in his production team. Good on him.

Appalling? Maybe. You’ve been warned. It’s going to be different to most sketches and stand-up hours we see in Cambridge, different to what Will calls a ‘normal’ comedy show.

But it’s also going to be honest. Mark’s debut hour is selling out quickly, and I can’t help but think that’s largely down to the premise, which isn’t really a premise at all. It’s reality, if reality seen through the lens of dark and slightly silly humour. Mark is letting the audience in on what he personally sees as ‘the ultimate X Factor sob-story’.

Because what do any of us say when confronted by tragedy of such unusual magnitude? Having lost a parent myself I see what Will means when he calls the show ‘generous’. Even those of us who’ve been unfortunate enough to experience bereavement flounder when confronted with it. And yes, we all swore we’d never be one of those people saying inane things like ‘I’m sorry for your loss’. It’s an intimacy rarely afforded to us, and I can foresee (or fore hear?) a few gasps in amongst the laughter.

Mark admits that as much as he’s cried — and wielded the power to make others cry — he, of course, prefers to make people laugh. It’s a better tonic. I can see how it would be cathartic to literally stand with a microphone and talk about things that people normally whisper about. Mark recommends it. Well, he recommends that anyone having a rough time should specifically sign up for a one-night stand at the Corpus Playroom, but I’m sure getting your feelings out in other ways is good too.

“...this is the darkest show in a term that’s already embraced the blacker side of comedy.”

Mark and Will say the writing process has involved tears and laughter, and some reining in by Haydn Jenkins, who’s co-directing. Apparently Haydn prevents them from saying anything ‘too monstrous’, but from what I’ve gathered this is the darkest show in a term that’s already embraced the blacker side of comedy. Britney, for example, is a comedy about two friends dealing with a (very real) diagnosis of a brain tumour. Ken Cheng’s latest hour went from hysterical to heart-wrenchingly personal, and back again. The 2016 zeitgeist of misery may be rubbing off on us, Mark observes, half-jokingly.

Review: Ken Cheng: Best Dad Ever

Needless to say, it’s going to be funny. This is the man who brought us this year’s Footlights Pantomime, as well as two clever and whimsical sketch shows, Babushka and Diphthong. Sure, Pity Laughs will be different, but from what they tell me the core silliness, even daftness, of Mark’s style of comedy will still be apparent. With this show, they’re not so much pushing the envelope as they are following what comes naturally.

Initially the show was titled Bad Advice, until Mark realised that what he really wanted to write about was about losing his parents, about being gay — and, though the latter is a rather less obviously dramatic misfortune, the fact remains that these are two truths that Mark had to confront, and, for him, one is as inescapable as the other. If the way that Mark and Will talk about the show is anything to go by, we may also find that laughing with misery goes a long way to setting us free.

Mark will be performing Pity Laughs for one night at 9.30pm at the Corpus Playroom, Monday 23rd January