Alpha Bravado Charlie

Two men walk into a pub, one is counting change.

MAN 1
For f**ks sake that taxi cost 20 quid we only went about 200 f**king yards

MAN 2
Did you give him a tip.

MAN 1
Yeah, I told him to never buy a Mermaid a pair of f**king tights

MAN2
Grab that table I'll get the ale in.

Man 1 goes over to a table next to two women in the 50's who are wearing mini-skirts and halter tops.

MAN 2 brings over two bottles of Budweiser to the table.

MAN 2
Those robbing bastards just charged me 22 quid for them, God knows what they'd charge for a f**king cocktail.?

MAN1
11 quid a bottle!

MAN 2
And they're warm

MAN 1
I'm not surprised at that price they probably keep them in the f**king safe

MAN 2's phone pings a text

MAN 2
He's 2 minutes away

MAN 1
Thank f**k for that

MAN 2 discreetly indicates towards the women on the next table and speaks low.

MAN 2
Mutton dressed as lamb

MAN 1
More like offal dressed as f**king mutton

Man 2's phone pings again

Man 2
He's outside I'll meet you in the toilets

Man 2 exits as Man 1 goes into the toilets

Both men are a cubicle in the pub toilet. Man 2 opens up a wrap of cocaine and looks at it with disdain.

Man 2
That's not much for 50 quid

MAN 1
50 quid that robbing bastard's probably more worried about getting nicked by Trading Standards than the Drug Squad

MAN 2
He did say its shit hot stuff

The two men have a line each and exit the toilets.

As they do so they go over to the two women and turn on the charm.

MAN 2
Now then ladies how come two crackers like you are on your own

MAN1
Why don't we buy you beautiful ladies some cocktails?

The sketch doesn't really work for me, there's not enough to it, but the line about keeping the beer in the safe is funny.

I agree with Gappy - some good lines that would sit nicely in a bit of Del Boy-style dialogue - but it doesn't seem to go anywhere.

For me its the quick step from moaning to snorting to buzzing .

I get that - just needs to get there quicker IMHO.
Or do it visually.
Shitty pub before their visit to the loo - Las Vegas Nightclub when they come out.

Confession time as a few of the lines are taken from a sitcom I wrote that I think is the best I've ever written. I spent two months on it and there is not a bad line in it.
Sadly the BBC person I wrote it for led me down a garden path as they never really knew what working class life is like and they kept demanding 'Agency' they wanted the mother to be like Educating Rita and the dad to be like Yozza Hughes and two more hated characters I could not think of as they represent the life I've led and the people I know seen through the eyes of Deputy headmaster or a social worker .

Sounds about right.
Not a f**king clue any of them.
The trouble is, as an independent writer you rarely get past the gatekeeper who, ironically, is usually as thick as a gatepost.
It's why I formed a ProdCo with producer.
At least we get in a little further up the food-chain.
(They still tell us to f**k-off most of the time, though)

Save those lines, though - they'll come in handy one day.

I've got more pilots than Richard Branson, more sketches than Rolf Harris in his prison years a Novel and a big f**k off really clever thriller called Wenceslas that would take three nights to air and is as good as Prime Suspect and Line of Duty but I doubt I will ever earn a penny from my writing as what you say, I know to be the truth .
Still I love to write so why stop?

Quote: Teddy Paddalack @ 26th June 2021, 11:40 AM

For me its the quick step from moaning to snorting to buzzing .

View original

I get that, but all it does is note that drugs change your perceptions and actions, which I think is pretty well known. So, if you want to make that point, you need to make it more extremely. Lazzard's suggestion is nice. Another idea is that you could show them snorting, or dropping some pills then a montage of a wild night, taking photos all the while; then the next day they could look through the photos and they show a vastly different scene (eg we saw them in hot tub with a swimwear-clad model, and the picture shows them in a rain-filled skip with a fat bloke in a string vest).

Even then I don't think there's enough there for a sketch, but could work in a longer piece where we had some relationship with the characters.

I promise you I'll be using that "keep it in the safe" line in real life though

How about they exit the gents, as soon as they see the two women mentioned earlier, the men's eyes totally light up and they stop in their tracks.

They turn to each other, trying to hide their excitement.

MAN 1 & MAN 2: Phwoooaaaar!!!

They saunter towards the women, like the coolest dudes on the planet.

Thanks for the read of it Allison and you're ending is better than mine.