The Amazing Sketch Show

The description of The Amazing Sketch Show states that their sketches are ‘some of the funniest, silliest and zaniest sketches’ to be found at this year’s Fringe. This is a bold claim to make, and unfortunately the show does not quite deliver on this promise, although the potential is there. The majority of the sketches were certainly zany, and some were sillier than others, but not all of them made their mark when it came to being especially funny. This being said, the group of nine performers from King’s College London– including a band comprised of two ukulele players, a drummer and a singer – have put together an entertaining show, and their enthusiasm more than makes up for some of the less amusing or overlong sketches in their set.

The use of the band was one of the most innovative features of this show, used to recap the sketch that had just been performed, as well as provide music and sound effects in some of the sketches themselves.

The use of the band was one of the most innovative features of this show, used to recap the sketch that had just been performed, as well as provide music and sound effects in some of the sketches themselves. In some cases these brief musical interludes parodied popular songs, such as a song about a seal parodying the song Sexy Back (‘Take it to the beach!’), but for the most part these served as pleasant jingles, in contrast to the usual burst of pop music used in most sketch shows, and helped the disparate set of situations to flow into one another. Often actors for the next sketch would dance onstage to the music before their sketch began; a delightful and quirky touch. This quirkiness was also seen the variety of sketches the group performed, with such diverse topics as personified bacteria, a pre-natal class, how our names can affect our personalities and a description of serial killers. Despite the dark nature of this last topic, the show fulfils its aim of being family friendly, and never uses crude humour or situations in order to get laughs. This being said, on occasion the laughs the show did get were few; a couple of sketches were overlong as the punch line could be easily anticipated part way through, and notably in one sketch some props were given out to members of the audience which, though amusing at the time, played no further role in the show and left these audience members to look after them for the remainder of the hour.

The Amazing Sketch Show, then, is perhaps not as amazing as the title promises, but this does not mean it isn’t entertaining. The show contains plenty of clever sketches and good ideas, some of them just need further development or, in some cases, to be scaled back in order to make for a better paced show. I look forward to seeing what this talented team bring to the Fringe next year.