In the 1950s, comedy revue shows were a staple of the West End, and in 1954 and 1955, the Cambridge Footlights sent its annual show to the West End. Former University Challenge presenter and Footlights member Bamber Gascoigne says that this persuaded youngsters going to Cambridge with half an eye on a theatrical future that Footlights was the place to be. But the light and airy revue shows of the mid-1950s, ironically, marked the end of an era.

Alistair Cooke (Cambridge) saw the Footlights revue of 1959, expecting something like the whimsy he remembered from before the war, but came away predicting that its stars would soon be West End fixtures. The change was hammered home by Beyond the Fringe (a show proposed by Oxonian John Bassett, then assisting the director of the Edinburgh Festival). The show, starring Cambridge’s Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller alongside Oxford’s Alan Bennett and Dudley Moore, took the early 1960s West End and Broadway by storm and the Oxbridge comedy conveyer belt is still running.

David Frost was the star of the 1960s satire boom that also helped launched the Oxbridgian Pythons and Goodies. Not The Nine O’Clock News was heavily-manned by Oxbridge, including Rowan Atkinson, Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones. The Cambridge Footlights’ show, The Cellar Tapes, starred Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery and won the inaugural Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe. The Mary Whitehouse Experience spawned the double acts Punt and Dennis and Newman and Baddiel. Mel and Sue, Lee and Herring, Armstrong and Miller, Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G and Borat), the Garth Marenghi team, Mitchell and Webb, John Oliver and Laura Solon all took their first comedy steps at Oxbridge, and any list inevitably leaves out as many names as it includes.

Oxbridge has produced equally influential comic writers and producers, including Michael Frayn, Clive James, Ian Hislop, Douglas Adams and Richard Curtis, as well as Armando Iannucci and more recently Dan Mazer, the producer of Ali G.

David Mitchell, half the stars of Peep Show and Mitchell and Webb, says, "I arrived at Cambridge not knowing for certain that I wanted to be a comedian. I knew all about Footlights, but I didn’t realise about the dozens of other shows being produced every term. The three years I spent acting, writing sketches and performing comedy were great training, and helped me make up my mind that this was what I wanted for my career. I met lots of other people who found the same thing."

Will this conveyor belt ever end? Has the stand-up boom blown away the student revue show? Mitchell replies, "Stand-up has made traditional revues less visible at places like the Edinburgh Fringe, but the reality of the comedy profession is that Oxbridge graduates are still coming through every year."