Blind Mirth Sketch Show: Not That Funny?

On 18 March at 9:30pm, Blind Mirth, St Andrews’ only improv comedy group, did the unthinkable: they abandoned improv. For one night only, as part of the On The Rocks Festival, they traded spontaneity for scripts. 

Held at the Union’s StAge, a £5 ticket granted entry to seven performers delivering roughly 23 skits over the course of an hour and a half. If there was a synopsis of the show’s highlights, it went something like this: porn, a Hitler joke, more porn, and an endless supply of sex jokes. For some, this brand of humour lands effortlessly; for others, myself included, it feels like well-trodden ground. But comedy is subjective, and what had some audience members in stitches left me watching with detached curiosity. 

As mentioned, a couple of scenes relied heavily on the theme of porn. One skit featured four actors playing a mother (Ava Cecile Samans), father (Callum Wardman-Browne), child (Loulou Sloss), and the child’s significant other (Ellen Rowlett). The father, eyeing his daughter’s partner with suspicion, began interrogating him about his viewing habits.

“Have you ever watched porn?” asked the father.

When Rowlett, the boyfriend, hesitantly answered no, the father demanded, “What’s wrong with you?” and launched into a rant about how, if he had been born in the internet age, he would have taken full advantage. “Your generation just doesn’t understand how good they have it,” he lamented, an opinion that, to be fair, some older people might genuinely hold.

But the real crime came next. The boyfriend finally admitted that he did watch porn — just regular, straight porn. Then, he confessed the ultimate offense: he didn’t pay for it.

This sent the father into a full-blown meltdown. “These people put their hearts, souls, and asses into their work!” he shouted. A few more lines were exchanged on porn. Then, the lights dimmed.

The skit leans on tired tropes, generational misunderstandings, and forced escalation, without offering a fresh take. The punchline, where the father shames the boyfriend for not paying for porn, aims for absurdist humor but lacks wit or deeper commentary. Instead of clever satire, it relies on shock value, making it predictable rather than funny.

A clever touch, though repeated a few times throughout the show, was having the writer of a particular scene step out to explain their thought process. An ‘interviewer’, Matthew Clegg, and the writer of the previous sketch would break the fourth wall, discussing the skit’s intent. In this case, the interviewer asked, “Do you leave polite comments on the porn you watch?” The interviewee hesitated before delivering the final line: “I don’t watch porn.” Then, the lights dimmed. The joke relies on an awkward cliffhanger, which is done through the majority of the scenes. But instead of being witty, the humour was based more on an abrupt ending than an actual punchline. 

I’ll give them credit, they tried to be bold with a Hitler joke. The scene played out like one from The Good Place: a man finds himself in a bureaucratic waiting room after death, where a clerk reviews his paperwork to determine his final destination: Heaven or Hell. First name: Adolf; last name: Hitler. The clerk then reveals that the one true religion is Judaism. A throwaway joke follows, something along the lines of, “At least you didn’t commit genocide.” The audience then watches the clerk gradually become acquainted with Hitler and his crimes, and finally sends him to Hell, which didn’t quite land with the crowd.

These jokes don’t just fall flat, they make the comedian look lazy, relying on the outrageous rather than actual wit. And this one misfired spectacularly. Perhaps the poor quality of such humour stems from the fact that Blind Mirth is more at home with improv than it is with scripted comedy. The Festival describes itself as a space to “showcase talent and create a greater sense of community within the student body.” Is On The Rocks, a celebration of student creativity and collaboration, the right stage for performances that feel more tasteless than entertaining?

Aside from these few skits, several other moments went south. Out of the many scenes, there was one where Ava Cecile Samans, playing a grandmother, strutted around in red lingerie, only for the punchline to be an old man muttering, “I just soiled myself.” Or, another, near the end, where a cast member implied a sketch to be so funny that female audience members would “discharge themselves”. Once again, the final line was supposed to land with a bang, but they relied on this formula in nearly every skit to the point of exhaustion. I’ll hold off on diving into these four scenes, one of which parodied Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and another which featured an old man dressed as a dog who humped a child’s leg.

The cast, however, did a good job referencing uniquely St Andrews moments. In one scene, they even poked fun at the St Andrews Art Society’s life drawing, where, every so often, an ‘indie’ band takes the stage with occasionally explicit lyrics. The sketch highlighted the awkwardness of having a nude model in the middle of the stage, comically wearing a white t-shirt with drawn-on boobs, striking poses during several one-minute interludes. One band member posed with a little striped scarf, while another singer continuously belted out filthy lyrics. The crowd found it hysterical, and I even caught myself giggling. 

Overall, the actors clearly had a blast on stage, laughing uncontrollably and sometimes even struggling to speak between bouts of laughter. It was evident that time and effort had gone into the performance; they knew what they were doing and delivered generally strong acting. Perhaps it was precisely because this wasn’t their typical improv format that comedy fell a bit flat. While I didn’t find the show particularly enjoyable, it seemed to resonate with many in the audience, and there’s no doubt they’ll be coming back for more.

Photo provided by LouLou Sloss