Review: As Seen As Possible

Focusing on the fickle and fast-moving world of celebrities, Ariel Hebditch’s As Seen As Possible covers a broad range of issues, from TikTok fame and academic stans to the facetious politician and pretentious art critics. The extremely broad range of sketch topics despite the short runtime of the show gives Hebditch a large number of opportunities to write good jokes on a wide variety of topics. Though whilst this opportunity is definitely taken full use of, certain sketches seem to drag at times and punchlines sometimes feel a bit hit and miss, though when they hit they make their mark very well.

This wide range of sketches does lead to a large number of topics being covered, with noticeable highlights being the Satanic politician, the asexual vampire, the dark academia supervision fanfic, and the masked singer parody. If this sounds like a slightly eclectic mix of sketches strung together by a fairly loose theme then you would be right, a point which the show’s compère Andy Warhol (Grace Baxter) highlights. Though self-awareness in itself doesn’t innately stop an issue, when the sketches hit right and the laughs are coming through, the inconsistencies of theme are not a complete deal breaker to having a good time.

The key issue the show had was only really obvious in certain sketches and was fundamentally a question of runtime. Whilst some sketches were incredibly punchy and made their mark well no matter how clever or simple the punchline was, others felt like they were dragging at times and the payoff ultimately didn’t feel always worth it. The ultimate example of this comes in the limelight and the art gallery sketches, with the former being an excellently stupid, tightly well-crafted skit which is much funnier than it sounds on paper. With the art gallery sketch, despite some strong potential and some silly moments such as carrying in Baxter as part of the exhibit, the ultimate payoff didn’t feel overly satisfactory and could have been worked on.

Despite some sketches not always hitting their mark though, performances were generally always consistently high. Joe Morgan’s range of characters from the lazy supervision student to the Bus driver from across the ages was a particular highlight, as he seemed to give it all to each of his roles. Baxter’s Warhol, whilst excellently pretentious also has excellent characters such as the digitally unsure and overly pretentious author. Vivian Wang’s TikTok star works, whilst starting out with fairly typical jokes, to get funnier and funnier as the bus stop sketch gets repeated throughout the show. Hebditch is able to shine as the eternally conflicted asexual vampire and the fourth-wall-breaking boomer, whilst Emery Zhao makes a wonderfully superficial and charismatic telly host.

As Seen As Possible has a lot of promise, there is a wide range of sketches many of which hit very well, though the broad range of themes does make it feel slightly vague and inconsistent at times, with some sketches feeling incredibly punchy whilst others drag in places. Performances are on the whole excellent, and whilst certain sketches could do with a bit of tightening up it is certainly worth heading down to Christ’s to see what is truly a hidden gem of comedy, and I look forward to seeing more of Hebditch’s comedy in Christ’s and around Cambridge.

3/5

As Seen As Possible is showing from the 1^st – 4^th of March at 8:00 pm and on the 5^th at 9:30 pm in Christ’s New Court Theatre. Book your tickets here.

Feature Image Credits: Michael Elizabeth

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