Are you prepared for a wolf attack? Do you know what historic period you’d visit if given the chance to time travel? You may have considered fallback plans, but do you have a fall-forward plan? Jonathan Neary, a 2022 Chortle Student Awards semi-finalist and Footlight, is tackling these issues and more in his upcoming standup show Contingencies: Ready for Anything.

Neary, a History student at Pembroke, first got into standup in early 2020. “I loved doing it, and then had to wait about 18 months to do it properly again,” he explains. Before Cambridge, Neary did amateur theatre; upon reaching university, he joined a sketch comedy show and discovered his passion for comedy writing. “In the context of standup, it puts the onus completely on you to make it work, which gives it that added level of satisfaction when it works,” he says. He later became a Footlight and wrote the play Bunker last year, which won the Footlights’ Harry Porter Prize for best comic play. Like Contingencies, Bunker dealt with the theme of contingency planning for hypothetical scenarios.

“I always found myself coming back to this theme of dealing with absurd what-ifs with sincerity”

Reflecting on the show’s focus on what-if situations, Neary connects it to his broader comedy writing process. “I based the theme of the show off the theme that I found myself going back to whenever I wrote standup, where I’d write answers and solutions to silly questions that don’t really matter,” Neary shares: “I always found myself coming back to this theme of dealing with absurd what-ifs with sincerity as the style that felt the most right to me.” Maddy Sanderson, assistant director for Contingencies, relates to the theme as well. “I plan and worry way too much in real life – rehearse conversations, talk to myself,” Sanderson says: “It’s nice to know I’m not totally alone in doing that.”

Contingency plans make a fitting theme for a standup comedy show – a comedian has to prepare for anything (and everything) to happen while they’re onstage. A tried-and-true joke could fall flat with a new audience; a heckler could decide to upstage the comedian. Are contingency plans just anxious projection or a wise approach to life? In either case, Neary is weaving stories from his own life into reflections on how to prepare for anything, riffing on everything from social media to those times (plural!) he got mugged in Paris.

“The music video we’re shooting will rival Beyoncé’s magnum opus”

Neary has written new material for his first standup hour; performing solo was a long-term goal of his and something he wanted to achieve before graduating. As a result, he has surrounded himself with a team of comedians who are working to refine his comedy ahead of his performance. “I have a really great team of directors and script editors working with me,” Neary says: “all of whom I really trust and know are very funny people.”

One team member, Sophie Stemmons, is a fellow Footlight who toured with Neary during the Footlights 2022 International Tour. Joining Contingencies as a script editor was an obvious decision for her. “I love working with him and his absurd sense of humour, so I knew I’d want to get involved with his debut hour,” Stemmons says. Between the Footlights and the broader Cambridge theatre community, the enthusiasm for student-run comedy shows is strong, so while Neary may be putting on a one-man show, he has a strong support system in place backstage (and, ideally, in the audience).

The Contingencies team also has ambitions of using the ADC mainstage to its fullest for Neary’s performance. “I’m really excited about the use of tech in the show,” Neary says: “I’m hoping to bring in lots of projection and stuff going on in the background to keep it engaging and play with the format of standup.” Rhys Griffiths, another script editor for the show, shares his enthusiasm for the incorporation of tech into the production. “The music video we’re shooting will rival Beyoncé’s magnum opus,” Griffiths asserts.

“Jon is making the idea of over-planning fun!” Sanderson says: “The possibility for different scenarios is huge, and it’s great to create a show with so much variety.” What’s really impressive is Neary’s planning abilities outside of the show. While talking with him, I mentioned that my bike’s tire had gone flat; he casually pulled a bike pump from his backpack, asking if I wanted to borrow it – now that’s committing to the bit.

So, with all this talk of contingency plans, what exactly is Neary preparing his audience for? You’ll have to come to the ADC Theatre on 31st January to find out – the show is one night only and starts at 11pm.