Quote: RobJ @ 7th March 2014, 10:23 AM GMTWhen Romesh was part of a sketch it didn't feel like he was part of it, like he was doing it becasue there was no one else.
I kind of agree with this. But again, in defence of Romesh, he is very good at the start - stand up comedy his thing. But Justin Edwards was a fantastic team member and I missed that.
Interesting changes, there are plenty of straightforward topical shows around, so putting a spin on that is a worthwhile idea. Mixing real and fake stories doesn't help either of them though, imo.
I liked Romesh as a host, although I agree with some of the points raised here, and also felt opening up by claiming it was a bad week for news makes him sound like a newbie to the world of Topical, otherwise he'd remember the weeks in which major catastrophes dominated the headlines. Also, doing a gag about his ethnicity loses a lot on radio, because he actually sounds just like any other comedian; and as for his closing monologue, what was the point?
Quote: Judgement Dave @ 7th March 2014, 9:15 AM GMTI'm not convinced Romesh worked as well as could be: a couple of times he struck me as almost needy, such as when trying to persuade the audience the A&E IOU joke was worth more...
I don't think the joke worked on the audience because the term 'vowel crisis' was confusing. There's a clever joke in there somewhere, but this wasn't it.
Presumably the BBC is continuing it's policy of getting more women into comedy by having them play several of the male characters. I hope the long-term benefits will outweigh the initial compromise in quality.
As always, the best bits were written by people on here, and the head-butt sketch easily made me laugh most.
After listening to it again this morning, I would say yes it's a very new direction, but I think Newsjack needed it IMO. They've reset it like they did after Miles Jupp left, and much like the first series or the first with Justin it's going to take a series to really find it's feet. And I'm not just saying this because my sketch was the space cadet one! I actually think this could be a really good move for NJ. I think certain obvious things came out last night, like developing a sketch voice for Romesh, and the stylization of the one-liners, which to me seem like they could be like the Day Today headlines (and I find that very exciting). But in my opinion this is a really strong move.
Quote: DeathbyMonkey @ 7th March 2014, 1:41 PM GMTAfter listening to it again this morning, I would say yes it's a very new direction, but I think Newsjack needed it IMO. They've reset it like they did after Miles Jupp left, and much like the first series or the first with Justin it's going to take a series to really find it's feet. And I'm not just saying this because my sketch was the space cadet one! I actually think this could be a really good move for NJ. I think certain obvious things came out last night, like developing a sketch voice for Romesh, and the stylization of the one-liners, which to me seem like they could be like the Day Today headlines (and I find that very exciting). But in my opinion this is a really strong move.
Yep I thought of On The Hour as soon as I read the new brief which was why I was so surprised that Romesh's opening monologue was just jokes from his stand up routine and not something more akin to Chris Morris/character comedy.
Well done for getting on the show. I don't suppose you fancy pasting in your award winning sketch to critique and linking to it on this thread so some of us can use it as a learning exercise?
They didn't use anything of mine, so obviously the show was rubbish.
On a more serious note, I agree with most of the comments above. Romesh's routine at the start felt longer than it needed to be, but it was his first show and I assume things will get sharper as the series progresses.
Did anybody get a recorded but cut email? Usually, there are plenty of people on here who get them, but I haven't seen any mention of them. Just wondering if they've stopped sending them.
Quote: RobJ @ 7th March 2014, 10:23 AM GMTMy two pennies worth - I wasn't particularly impressed. I thought the russell brand sketch was just an excuse to get Morgana to do the impression, the liam neeson sketch I laughed, then I smiled, then I thought yeah alright, then I thought enough already.
The sketches seemed to go on longer (or was that just me), nothing wrong with that inheritantly if consistant jokes but shorter punchier sketches are what they pushed us towards (or, again, was that just me).
No, I don't think it was just you. I've just listened on iPlayer and I have to say I'm not too impressed, it was pretty disappointing overall.
The BBC keep stressing about originality and a unique voice - but I can't say I heard too much of that, Romesh came across as doing his own standup rather than hosting Newsjack, and it was a bit old and hackneyed... jokes about ethnic minorities, very 21st century indeed. And then straight into yet another run of the Liam Neeson impression/joke - are we back in series 8? I guess we can look forward to the Brian Cox and Ed Milliband impressions next week...! And the stuff about "The Ukraine" was almost word-for-word the same as on C4's The Last Leg last week, right down to the bit about "Arctic Monkeys"... tssk.
But my main gripe is that it wasn't really funny, and it wasn't really topical, which is errrr pretty fundamental to a topical news comedy! I was amazed at how little was related to recent news. I was left scratching my head at some of the stuff, sure everyone's taste is different but I couldn't actually work out what was supposed to be funny about some of it. I think it says everything that I listened to it at work and it was only on the Alan Pardew punchline that I had to suppress a laugh and my manager commented "oh, I thought you were listening to music". Eeek. By the way, I didn't send any sketches in, so this is not sour grapes 
Re "A&E IOU" - that certainly piqued my interest as I sent in a whole sketch about A&E and letters to TSWYW last week (?) - there's a coincidence!
Interested to hear others' opinions, but I don't think it worked very well at all. I hope they cut out the standup and make the show what it's supposed to be about - news. Anyway, I'm off to regurgitate some old Ed Milliband sketches and go throw this weeks' newspapers in the bin!
Quote: Winger @ 7th March 2014, 1:49 PM GMTYep I thought of On The Hour as soon as I read the new brief which was why I was so surprised that Romesh's opening monologue was just jokes from his stand up routine and not something more akin to Chris Morris/character comedy.
Well done for getting on the show. I don't suppose you fancy pasting in your award winning sketch to critique and linking to it on this thread so some of us can use it as a learning exercise?
Sure of course I will. I've just got a new laptop so am in the process of migrating all my data across, but as soon as that's done I will
I just couldn't figure out what the show was trying to be. It seemed to be taking on a new vibe, in the same vein as 'Russell Howard's Good News', then a typical 'Newsjack' sketch would be thrown in. Wasn't sure if I was listening to the news at ten or my mate in the pub appraising me of it.
OK, perhaps you had to be there. This show has no laughter track so I assume the response of the audience was genuine but there were guffaws which baffled me. When 'On The Hour' did its surreal headlines, they worked because the presenter delivered them with the gravitas associated with genuine news.
I've been sending lines into non-com topical comedy radio programmes since 1980 with very little success but it's fun fantasising that you've penned gems, and you don't mind if the stuff which gets on 
makes you laugh and (b) inspires you to try harder.
With monologue sketches, is it a good idea to space the dialogue out in order to improve readability, or are solid blocks of text preferable?
Just saw on twitter they've changed tuesday deadline to 12 instead of 4. So check there twitter feed for more info
I thought the host was the best part of the show, he was natural and improvised well, and seemed to know deep down most of the jokes were awful.
Quote: blahblah @ 8th March 2014, 7:00 PM GMTJust saw on twitter they've changed tuesday deadline to 12 instead of 4. So check there twitter feed for more info
Still says 4pm on the website, but I see that Mikey has replied to their tweet to clarify....
update - twitter says that they are updating the website in the morning - so it will be noon on both days for submissions.
Quote: DubiousG @ 7th March 2014, 1:54 PM GMTDid anybody get a recorded but cut email? Usually, there are plenty of people on here who get them, but I haven't seen any mention of them. Just wondering if they've stopped sending them.
I got one tonight
Although I was at the recording & don't remember anything.
Just sent off my sketch for Science & Technology, only one this week, unless inspiration strikes in the next 2 hours...
