Being a member of the Footlights must be quite a hard job – those are big shoes to fill. And the cast of the Footlights International Tour 2024 seem acutely aware of this, beginning their Fringe show with a bit about how they only secured a venue like the Pleasance because of the troupe’s star-studded alumni. Whether that’s true or not, there was probably no need for them to be so self-deprecating right out of the gate, because this is a perfectly good sketch show: well-written jokes, excellent performances, and lots of laughter from the audience – although it wasn’t without some dry patches.

As the name suggests, the show does indeed feature a dog: a sunglasses-wearing puppet which, after failing to talk in the first sketch, is placed on a chair to one side of the stage. It remains there, untouched, until about halfway through, when Will Boyce takes it backstage and shoots it, an action for which everyone feels remorse at the end. I suppose this provides the show with a sort of overarching plot, but other than that it contributes nothing and takes time and attention away from the actual sketches.

“There was probably no need for them to be so self-deprecating right out of the gate, because this is a perfectly good sketch show”

Which is a shame, because those are, for the most part, very good. Particular highlights include a performance of Macbeth’s soliloquy about how the blood of his victims can never be washed away, which seamlessly turns into an advert for a laundry detergent; a Michael Morpurgo book reading which begins with a charming story about a frog and ends with a harrowing description of the frog’s death at the Somme; and a gag that cleverly links Trump’s assassination attempt to that of Kennedy by suggesting that, in both cases, the First Ladies were responsible. Witty, original, and competently executed, these were everything a sketch show should be.

Notably, the humour of this show demanded more erudition from the audience than is perhaps normal. One lengthy sketch near the beginning centres around the pun ‘Teen Beowulf’, which is only funny so long as one catches the reference to ninth-century English literature. Another, with its frequent references to the ‘grassy knoll’, requires a fairly good working knowledge of JFK assassination conspiracy theories. Perhaps this is just what happens when you ask a group of Cambridge students to write jokes, but it makes this show stand out, and the reaction of the audience suggests that it wasn’t going over their heads.

“Footlights are always faced with an impossible task”

The show does sag in places, for the simple reason that some of the jokes just aren’t funny enough. A case in point is a sketch set in a restaurant, where the main gag is two people taking a very long time to make their order. The problem is that this joke, by nature, takes a while to make, but simply isn’t funny enough to justify that time. The result? A drain on the energy of the show.

Several members of the cast also fall victim to the delusion, common among comedians, that they can do accents in a way which is amusing rather than just annoying. They are wrong, unfortunately, and we are subjected to a couple of excruciating moments. Miranda Evans at one point sings a parody of country music and while the lyrics to this might have been funny, I’ll never know, because I was trying desperately to block out her attempt at a Southern drawl.

Footlights are always faced with an impossible task. When we go to a Footlights show we are comparing them with luminaries like Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, David Mitchell, Oliva Coleman, and so on. But those people largely became famous for things they did after they left Cambridge. If you went back in time to see Fry and Laurie while they were students, they probably wouldn’t be as brilliant as they later became. But we forget this and compare the work of people who are just starting out with the work of those in their prime. This Time We Have a Dog doesn’t quite achieve brilliance, but for all that it’s still an entertaining show. And who knows? There was real talent on display here, so those who watch the Footlights in the hope of seeing a future star may not be disappointed in the years to come.

The Footlights International Tour Show 2024: This Time we Have a Dog is playing at the Pleasance Courtyard from Aug 9th - 18th & 20th - 26th.