Short sketches are simple with two characters, but if there's three, what factors are worth considering?
Short sketches with 3 characters
In cartoon strips, which I do, three characters is the perfect number. Two set up the joke then the third delivers the punchline. Also, the dynamics between three is sufficiently complicated for lots of possibilities, whereas four is much too complicated. I should imagine it's similar for sketches.
It's easier to write for 2 characters, because thesis/antithesis is sort of the basis of so many sketches. To have extra characters, you need them to be differentiable (is that a word?) from the other 2 parties. It's also hard to work out how to split the lines if there are more than 2 characters - I like sketches set in, say, a board meeting, because then it's perfectly logical that a character might only say one thing, or might just be there to repeat an essentially irrelevant joke.
Of course, there's also the 4 Yorkshirement technique, where the charactwers are all the same, but the traits get amplified throughout the sketch.
In short, unless I'm deliberately writing for a group of performers, or I think an idea necessitates an ensemble, I just write 2-hander sketches
The main thing to do would be to make sure that none of the characters are stood round doing nothing. If they are, then the sketch probably only needs two characters.
Quote: Ben @ 1st February 2014, 6:45 PM GMTThe main thing to do would be to make sure that none of the characters are stood round doing nothing. If they are, then the sketch probably only needs two characters.
That's basically what I meant, put much more elegantly. 
If you're writing it for a specific place it's worth considering the number of cast. For example Treason and Newsrevue prefer 2 handers so the other two cast members can get ready for the next sketch at the same time