Slush begins with three hosts in distress holding frantic discussions on how to quickly deal with their guests and warm up the food – or is it the other way round? They soon decide to stick a ready meal in the microwave and put on a show while the food thaws, and our trio overcome their social awkwardness to come out swinging (though the opening musical number is more pop than jazz).

The rest of the show continues in much the same manner, though the majority of the sketches are unrelated to the initial dinner party setting. The sketches are mostly short, sharp, and cleverly subversive, with each performer bringing plenty of enthusiasm and energy to the table.

"Slush could pull off visual gags, wordplay, and comic songs equally capably without disrupting the flow of the show."

Accordingly, some of Slush’s best scenes are those where the actors were able to spice things up with more excitable or animated characters. Rohan Sharma deserves a special mention for his cheerful, cloth-eared waiter in ‘Relatable Situations’ and bewitchingly charming job applicant, though Genevieve Williams and Harry Balden certainly both made a splash with some of their physical comedy in ‘Back in the Day’, for which each deservedly earned a good laugh. Williams’ guitar makes a few appearances, of which perhaps the most memorable one is an out-of-the-blue throwback rendition of the iconic early 2000s hit “Bob the Builder”. It is testament to the performers and the show’s Directors, Isambard Dexter and Zara Ramtohul-Akbur, that Slush could pull off visual gags, wordplay, and comic songs equally capably without disrupting the flow of the show.

The running jokes in Slush were well-done, and generally didn’t feel overused. It was clear that all three performers had consciously made an effort to adopt different voices and accents or play with physicality to try and keep characters distinct between sketches. By and large this was successful, though perhaps more could have been done in this respect. This isn’t to fault the actors’ performances; rather it’s a challenge that can face sketch shows with such small casts. To some extent, this could have been alleviated through the use of a wider variety of costumes or props – these were used almost exclusively for punchline generation in Slush. Prop-based puns were on the whole both effective and well-received (even in the case of the microwave, surprisingly), but at times the sketch characters could become somewhat samey.

Being a Corpus late show, the set is understandably relatively limited, but this doesn’t noticeably detract from the show. If anything, it allows transitions between sketches to be quicker, especially given that the cast, small as it is, make the on-stage changes themselves. This maintains the pace of the show, and could be considered as being consistent with our panicked hosts desperately trying to keep their guests entertained. The only thing missing from Slush is an excruciatingly drawn-out game of charades or a deeply divisive board game.

Overall, Slush is a well-devised and well-performed show that is a welcome break from the stresses of exam term. The humour is easy-going, keenly-observed, and light-hearted. Although the production value of the show was relatively low, the lively, effervescent performances by a cast who seem to have terrific chemistry with each other was more than enough to make up for any constraints on props, set, and costume.