The Cowards met at Cambridge University's Footlights Dramatic Club where they worked together. Basden, Golaszewski, and Woolf performed in a show directed by Key and Mark Watson. It later emerged that Key was not studying at Cambridge University and that he had misled the society when auditioning. This was discovered when he got into the tour show "Far Too Happy" but the Footlights agreed to "keep up the charade" until the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In "Far Too Happy", Key performed alongside Mark Watson and Sophie Winkleman and they were nominated for the Perrier Comedy Award for Best Newcomer. Key later described the period as "life-changing".