So, it’s that time of year again. Courses are ending, exams are beginning and the Let’s Act showcase is on at The Vault in Winchester University.

For those of you who didn’t attend, the showcase is a mash-up of all the stuff the Let’s Act bunch have got up to this year. They have a small tribute to each Performing Arts Winchester show, a random mix of small scenes they’ve workshopped or created, and an extended devised piece. A night of drama.

The show began in the standard showcase style with some scripted and slightly forced jokes from two pretty awesome hosts before delving into the sketches and exerts. The first thing of note was a short snippet of Godber’s Shakers. The four girls seemed totally up for it but failed to quite hit Godber’s unique style. To be fair to them their gag timing was pretty spot on but they didn’t quite seem to get the jokes themselves. Also, being from “up t’north meself” the mispronunciations of some classic northern phrases really grated me. Southerners and Godber, never quite works somehow.

The next few sketches were pretty funny, a tip of the cap to French and Saunders is always welcome. However, whoever had organised the order really made some huge errors. Some truly brilliant exerpts from some serious dramas were squeezed in between the comedy sketches. It really threw us, as an audience, and no one really felt comfortable. Bit of a comedy-rape-comedy sandwich going on, wasn’t very good.

The second act contained a devised, and slightly more adult, version of the Peter Pan story. The actor who played Hook was definitely by far the most convincing character. There were, however, some in-jokes between the cast that were voiced on-stage and that really dragged down the quality of the performance.

 A two out of five from me.