Sketch longevity

I don't really enjoy writing sketches - I'm far happier writing sitcom - but from what I've learned, I think it's fair to say that brevity is the soul of wit in modern sketch comedy, and any sketch going on for more than a couple of minutes is probably going on too long.

So what if you came up with a sketch that was 8 minutes long? Well for one thing, there isn't a producer or script-reader in the land that would take it seriously from me or you. But what if you were already incredibly successful, and you had serious creative control over what you were doing? How long would you wait before delivering the first gag of this 8 minute sketch? 10 seconds? 20? No longer than 30, surely?

How about one minute, forty-three seconds? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhLIjlTNSk

I'm not sure what my point is here, except that it seems all accepted wisdom and rules of comedy fly out the window when you become big enough to call the shots.

Actually this is one of only two Catherine Tate sketches that makes me laugh. (The other is the Detective with the kids). Wasn't it cut up and used a runner though?

Anyway I do wonder sometimes if we work too hard at compressing our sketches.

Quote: Timbo @ November 17 2008, 12:37 AM GMT

Anyway I do wonder sometimes if we work too hard at compressing our sketches.

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We do.

This sketch is an extreme example of overblown self-indulgence but sometimes it really doesn't matter if there are a few superfluous whimsies, as long as they add to the gag. Shaving three or four words from a sketch just for the sake of making it shorter is just stupid I think.

A brainy writer guy called William Strunk once said "Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts."

He must've been great fun at parties.

My car has a cd player which isn't strictly necessary but I'd hate to drive without it. I love brown sauce on my toasted egg butties but is it necessary? In fact does the bread even need to be toasted?

Yes it does. Now f**k off Mr Strunk.

Were not the Goon Shows, just long sketches?

I suppose it depends on where you are in your career.

Right now most of the people I write for do their reading in broom cupboards, fueled by benylin, nescafe and fags. Surounded by teetering stacks of 1000s of rubbish sketches and jokes.

If I can't make them laugh in paragraph one, then forget it.

You have to understand the rules and be respected before you can really break them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1KMxNVRDJg

World's greatest over extended sketch, wish I was good enough to get away with that.

This came at the very beginning of the show before the titles.

So it genuinely looked like Juliet Bravo.

Quote: Lee Henman @ November 17 2008, 12:23 AM GMT

I

How about one minute, forty-three seconds? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhLIjlTNSk

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Wish I was good enough to get away with such an old joke over 8 minutes.

Some good points raised here. I sometimes think everyone has heard/read/been told the 'sketch writing rules' about getting to the joke, brevity, etc and just apply it to everything all the time.

Yes, often there's waffle, but sometimes I think new writers are so rigid about rules that you might as well just go straight in with the punchline and end it there.

On a similar note, generally with writing I find it hard to accommodate the wisdom that viewers (or listeners) are basically idiots with very short attention spans. Personally I love literature, films, etc take their time in telling a story - just as much as faster, snappier pieces.

If you can write a consistently funny sketch which is 8 minutes long then go for it. I don't know if producers would still be a bit wary of it though. You don't get many long sketches on TV these days. Fry and Laurie certainly used to have some long sketches and I wouldn't say they were always jam packed full of gags either.

I usually write sketches which are between 5 seconds and 3 minutes long. Most would average around 2 minutes. I like writing short sketches. If I wrote any longer then I would end up putting filler material in there. Like Griff, my final draft is always a chopped down version.

Going slightly off topic, do you think that, as a nobody, it's better to write shorter sketches? Would you stand a better chance of getting something accepted on to a show? Or should we just write those 5 minute masterpieces and take all the glory?

Quote: Ben @ November 17 2008, 9:49 AM GMT

Going slightly off topic, do you think that, as a nobody, it's better to write shorter sketches? Would you stand a better chance of getting something accepted on to a show?

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Probably, yeah. I'd love to write a show with longer sketches, rather than the quick in and out sketches you mainly get these days. Or at least a show that has room for that sort of thing.

Well, rules are blatantly made to be broken but not everyone can get away with doing so successfully. The rules as I see them are pretty good guidelines and you probably can't go far wrong following them.

Of course big famous people can rip the rules up and do what they want sometimes but even they only get away with it for so long before people get bored, realise they're not going to go back to being any good and start ignoring them.

And if your sketch gets to 8 minutes, it's not a sketch any more, it's a short film. Like this.

Quote: Ben @ November 17 2008, 9:49 AM GMT

Going slightly off topic, do you think that, as a nobody, it's better to write shorter sketches? Would you stand a better chance of getting something accepted on to a show?

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I'd imagine so, if only because there's a better chance of them fitting a short sketch into their running order and more chance of them risking a 1 minute sketch from an unknown than a 3 minute sketch which might lose the audience if it's not good enough.

Six minute plus sketches are unusual these days but there's nothing wrong with them if (as has been pointed out) they have enough laughs. Some like to catergorise The League of Gentleman as a sketch show (rather than a sitcom) - so I guess it's a good example of how longer sketches can work.

I've often heard that anything longer than 30 seconds for a sketch is too long - but I've never bought that. After all Dickens could have written Great Expectations in two pages - but it wouldn't have been better for it.

Well literature didn't really start until 1982.

And did you see what that Baumski did with all that Shakespeare nonsense? Now, *that's* editing...

Dan

Quote: Griff @ November 17 2008, 10:32 AM GMT

I'm glad that novels no longer follow the Victorian model of spending ten tedious pages describing the scenery before anything happens. But thank God journalists understand that people have short attention spans (which isn't the same as people being idiots).

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I always skipped through the Brontes' in depth descriptions of moorland flowers.

Agreed journalism is completely different (also reporting and feature writing are different and require a different pace). I used to have to write news stories to a 100 word limit which was hard at first but became second nature.

People do seem to have increasingly short attention spans these days and it appears to be a vicious circle; TV and film is made for this and so people's attention spans get even shorter. Soon no one will be able to sit through scenes and images on screen for longer than a fraction of a second. I've particualy noticed this in children's programmes, if you say compare something like Bagpuss with Lazy Town - it's quite scary (though not Sporticus - he's rather nice).

Maybe if something's eight minutes long we should stop calling it a sketch and call it something else?

Quote: Griff @ November 17 2008, 11:01 AM GMT

Is it Elmore Leonard whose advice on writing goes "Try not to write the bits that people always skip"?

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I don't know. But Elmer Fudd said "kiww the wabbit."

Guess there's them bits that are like guitar or drum solos - you have to be stoned to like them.