Book review by Jay Richardson

Probably the most illustrious and best known nursery for comedy in the UK, the Cambridge Footlights has a cultural legacy that’s unrivalled. It has produced Beyond The Fringe, Monty Python, The Goodies, Not The Nine O'Clock News, The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Garth Marenghi, Peep Show, QI and much else besides  – running right up to Jade Franks' acclaimed play Eat The Rich, currently being staged at Soho Theatre and adapted by Netflix.

Like Franks' autobiographical piece, showbusiness biographer and former stand-up Robert Sellers captures the lingering public school elitism and class snobbery of Cambridge University, as well as the persistent sexism and lack of diversity that have bedevilled its world-renowned sketch comedy troupe since it was founded in 1883, following a cricket match with the local 'pauper lunatic asylum'. 

As former Footlights president Graeme Garden puts it, the troupe essentially began as 'a gentleman's club with a penchant for female impersonation'. And although this long-held preference for men in drag rather than female students in women's roles was characteristic for far too long, (reflecting the gender imbalance at the university itself, initially) Footlights unquestionably represented a haven for gay young men to be more themselves without explicitly stating their sexuality.

Sellers capably conveys the incredible draw, the excitement, trepidation and consequences of sacrificing one's hard-earned degree to follow in the footsteps of luminaries such as Peter Cook (pictured above in Beyond The Fringe), John Cleese and Stephen Fry: the nerves of trying out at a 'smoker' gig and the elation at being asked to join the inner sanctum of the Footlights committee.

It is impossible to read of Cook's emergence without feeling some of the awe that those around him must have felt at being in the presence of such prolific brilliance. However, the arrival of Germaine Greer and Clive James from Australia also blew away some of the stuffier elements. And virtually every generation of Footlights has tried to define itself in opposition to what came before. 

One of the most inadvertently funny passages in the book recalls Sacha Baron Cohen's doomed efforts to join the troupe in 1992. His sometime double-act partner, William Sutcliffe, suggests that while his rejection was a mistake, the future Borat creator was likely too smutty, crude and simply too maverick a talent, his ego bound to become too dominating.

Everyone since Cook has found membership a double-edged sword, guaranteeing stage time, audiences and tours of the UK and US for fledgling performers, with the chance to collaborate with like-minded intelligences and wits. But while still finding their voices, these young people are invariably reviewed negatively against their revered predecessors. 

Angela Channell recalls performing the 2019 tour show, Look Alive, in Edinburgh, running around the theatre and throwing lettuce at the audience, only to lock eyes with a stone-faced Hugh Laurie, sitting in the back row with Stephen Fry. But, of course, having to carry on regardless.

Membership of Footlights was once an automatic passport to the entertainment Establishment. But with the arrival of alternative comedy in the 1980s it became an unwanted badge of privilege, as David Baddiel for one attests.

Settling into a groove of writing revue-by-revue, Sellers has produced a definitive history, drawing on an impressive range of original interviews with the likes of Baddiel, Garden, David Mitchell, John Lloyd, Bill Oddie, Jan Ravens, Clive Anderson, Simon Munnery, Nick Hancock, Steve Punt, Matthew Holness, John Finnemore, Stefan Golaszewski and Amy Hoggart, as well as acts currently breaking through, such as Archie Henderson, aka Jazz Emu, John Tothill and Hasan Al-Habib.

With a few exceptions, such as the mercurial Munnery – who says he didn't like the rest of the committee, was made vice-president against his wishes and suggested they change the Footlights name – most reveal themselves to have been tremendously clubbable, really buying into the institution and hugely grateful for the grounding and launchpad it gave them for their careers. 

Perhaps only David Frost, with his overweening ambition and proclivity for stealing others' material, comes across as in any way disagreeable. One yearns for greater detail on the tensions and falling outs. For example, there's mention of Tim Key's influence on later generations. But inexplicably, nothing about how he infiltrated the troupe despite not studying at Cambridge.

Indeed, it's only with the arrival of Al-Habib and Franks towards the end of the book that it acquires any real grit in the oyster, as to varying degrees they cause ructions railing against the troupe's ongoing lack of diversity and are happy to speak up about it. The former even launched a rival show in 2019 with fellow non-white performers, pointedly called FootDarks.

Sellers’ preference for presenting Footlights' history on a year-by-year basis emphasises how much it's changed in 143 of them, while, somehow, resolutely remaining almost exactly the same, the deeply embedded traditions a fundamental part of its longevity. 

The downside to his approach is that even the most dazzling performers come to be seen as simply passing through on their inevitable road to success and the narrative quickly becomes repetitive. But even that's further testimony to Footlights' peerless production line of comic genius.

• The Cambridge Footlights: A Very British Comedy Institution by Robert Sellers  was published by Methuen Drama yesterday. It is available from Amazon priced £23 in hardback – or from uk.bookshop.org, below, which supports independent bookstores.  

Published: 23 Jan 2026