A sketch comedy with an overarching narrative, The Birmingham Footnotes Disagree is this year’s offering from the Birmingham University's sketch troupe. With a basic concept of half the group wanting to do gags based on BBC3 and the other half ones based on BBC4 the show effectively pits the two sides against each other as they 'disagree'.
For the most part the skits were well written and original in their inception. Particular praise goes to a wise men skit that comes out of left field with an appearance from a certain alpine chocolate. Another excellent aspect of the show were jokes that would be inserted almost as an afterthought whilst the audience is already laughing. It was this that took the show from funny to side-splitting.
The only real misses were those that were good ideas but ones which hadn’t really developed properly, such as a skit in which Sean Bean begs his agent for a film that he doesn’t die in, or a scene where a woman plans on protecting herself with a mace. It is a pity that these came consecutively as it was the only real lull in the hour long set. Apart from this, the dialogue was sharp and the comedy well acted. Furthermore, as is a rarity with these shows, the narrative really added to the overall show to the point that without it I don't know if I would have enjoyed it as much.
However, what stole the show was the faceless voice-over announcer, spraying insults left and right at the performers on stage during the blackouts between scenes, he had everyone laughing from start to finish. Witty, relevant and just a little bit dark, the Footnotes deliver a show that should catch while you can.
