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The Cambridge Footlights: A Very British Comedy Institution
In the league table of the funniest universities in the world, Cambridge wears the crown. Home of Britain's oldest student sketch comedy troupe, the Cambridge Footlights, it has been a veritable conveyor belt of comic talent that's been rolling for more than a century.
From Monty Python, The Goodies and Not the Nine O'Clock News to Peep Show, QI and The Great British Bake-Off, its alumni are behind many of the shows that have entertained since the 1960s to today. This book tells the story of the Footlights, chronicling its evolution from its creation in the 1880s to the present.
The Footlights has long been a potential portal to talent scouts, especially from the BBC, were in the habit of coming up to Cambridge on the lookout for comedy writers and material. This book traces the journeys of its most distinguished alumni, including Germaine Greer, John Cleese, Douglas Adams, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Miriam Margolyes, Emma Thompson, Richard Ayoade, David Mitchell and Sue Perkins, among many others.
Featuring interviews with numerous former Footlights alumni, and accounts of routines and revues, it vividly captures the desire of each successive intake to make their comic mark. Through examining the impact of the Footlights on British popular culture and comedy over the last 60 years, it demonstrates how its farces, musical comedies, pantomimes and the famous May Week revues have both reflected the tastes of the times and served as a 'nursery' for generations of comic writers and performers. In the world of comedy, it is a unique institution.
From Monty Python, The Goodies and Not the Nine O'Clock News to Peep Show, QI and The Great British Bake-Off, its alumni are behind many of the shows that have entertained since the 1960s to today. This book tells the story of the Footlights, chronicling its evolution from its creation in the 1880s to the present.
The Footlights has long been a potential portal to talent scouts, especially from the BBC, were in the habit of coming up to Cambridge on the lookout for comedy writers and material. This book traces the journeys of its most distinguished alumni, including Germaine Greer, John Cleese, Douglas Adams, Peter Cook, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Miriam Margolyes, Emma Thompson, Richard Ayoade, David Mitchell and Sue Perkins, among many others.
Featuring interviews with numerous former Footlights alumni, and accounts of routines and revues, it vividly captures the desire of each successive intake to make their comic mark. Through examining the impact of the Footlights on British popular culture and comedy over the last 60 years, it demonstrates how its farces, musical comedies, pantomimes and the famous May Week revues have both reflected the tastes of the times and served as a 'nursery' for generations of comic writers and performers. In the world of comedy, it is a unique institution.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published January 22, 2026
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May 26, 2026
It's a very weak four, workmanlike and completely unobjectionable, but reads more like a direct retelling of basic facts than anything more lively. I don't know how you would do better, but it just didn't feel like the most compelling read and went on quite a bit. I liked structuring chapters around the reviews.
Would recommend to comedy nerds, or people who wanted to go through their own history of going to Cambridge.
Would recommend to comedy nerds, or people who wanted to go through their own history of going to Cambridge.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review