British Comedy Guide

Newsjack 2017 Page 30

Just listened (Jane Austen gag, wish I'd thought of it).

Maybe I'm just tired... or jealous... but I wasn't exactly blown away by the hilarity.
I know it's supposed to be satirical but there's just too much politician stuff and it's all quite samey.

Quote: Mike X @ 21st September 2017, 10:24 PM

Yes. I will be listening closely to the show tonight and very tempted to pick out the weakest jokes that are broadcast and compare them to some of the excellent "rejects" posted in the "Critique" forum on here. Although of course we don't really know the details of the selection process and some of it must be blind luck. Humour is such a personal thing and it must be easy for a great joke to get thrown out because the person "judging" it doesn't like its style. Ho hum, TBH would probably feel different if I ever got something on the show!

Luck is always a factor in anything. "Blind luck" seems like a bit of an overstatement though.

Morning all,
I got on with the Justin and Theresa sketch :) it's a great learning curve seeing how the broadcast version differs from the script I sent in and how they've rolled with it in the writers room to get a lot more from the initial premise.
Congratulations to everyone else who got something on and best of luck for the rest of the series!

There was a lot of good stuff on the show last night but also a couple of weak bits. The "members only gym" punchline was particularly lazy (penis/member - geddit?) without any attempt to go beyond the most obvious and basic connection. Hard to believe that was the best joke about that news story. But the real low point was the North Korea sketch. Apart from the initial joke about how English the interpreter was this was a joke-free zone with the main character a poor copy of Siobhan from W1A and an abysmal and meaningless "punchline" about "firing an app across Japan". With over 500 sketches to choose from this was a ridiculously bad choice. Rest of the show was good though!

Well done Jodan, Gap1 and Damian B for getting something on last night - very good work.

And first sketch on is a double pat on the back as usually open and close with something strong.

The Vince Cable sketch was particularly good for me, the 'old apple seller' LOL...The Tenner Lady gag and Fight Club numbers were my fav this week!! Again, well done to whoever made it on, am really enjoying the series so far.

Toodle-pips

Just in case anyone was working on similar ideas, "Florence and the Machine" and "Chronicles of Nambia" have been trending on twitter...I was in the midst of playing around with the latter idea when I suddenly remembered the advice (can't remember from where again..) about checking social media!

Yeah I always check my jokes on Twitter. It's brilliant when you find an angle that no one else has thought of. But also disheartening all the other times when every Tom, Dick and Harry had the same idea.

I've got one joke (not topical) that I can't believe no one has thought of yet (If Twitter is anything to go by). I'm saving it for if I ever do decide to go on stage.

So I think there were only seven sketches in episode 2. Given that several of these would have come from the commissioned writers, I wonder how many public-submitted sketches were aired; two or three maybe?

Erm, may stir up a hornet's nest, but are Bonzo and Viv commissioned writers?

The iPlayer episode description rather disingenuously says "written entirely by the Great British public."

It also says "bought to life" though, so...

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 23rd September 2017, 10:30 AM

Erm, may stir up a hornet's nest, but are Bonzo and Viv commissioned writers?

Why's that a problem? I'm not criticizing those writers; after all, I've been one myself, which is how I know that a lot of the commissioned sketches tend to get broadcast.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 23rd September 2017, 10:30 AM

Erm, may stir up a hornet's nest, but are Bonzo and Viv commissioned writers?

In our dreams! We've been in the writers' room a couple of times, although nothing we wrote there actually made it into the show...

Quote: Mike X @ 22nd September 2017, 12:26 PM

the real low point was the North Korea sketch. Apart from the initial joke about how English the interpreter was this was a joke-free zone with the main character a poor copy of Siobhan from W1A and an abysmal and meaningless "punchline" about "firing an app across Japan".

I just relistened to the show to get in the mind set for writing for episode three, and actually I have to agree. The "firing an app across Japan" made no sense at all.

Then again, maybe I am bitter because they edited my sketch out.

Quote: TheKingLobotomy @ 23rd September 2017, 7:16 PM

I just relistened to the show to get in the mind set for writing for episode three, and actually I have to agree. The "firing an app across Japan" made no sense at all.

Comedy doesn't have to make sense, it only has to make people laugh.

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