Agony Aunt - Short Sitcom Excerpt

Tony:
How about this. Dear Jayne, I have an embarrasing addiction. I am addicted to healthy cerial.

Izzy:
So we have a man who's a fan of bran

Tony:
In a nutshell, a twist on the crunchy nut theme

Izzy:
These are all a bit samey, ooh, addiction to nutshell's ?

Tony:
We really are struggling today, what have we got so far?

Izzy:
A Man who loves his Nan, an AA man that loves a man with a tan, A Gran who doesn't love her man, a White van man called Stan who got a ban and a man called Dan who thinks he's Peter Pan

Tony:
She's going to kill us

Izzy:
She doesn't realise how hard it is to come up with these agony Aunt letters. It was easy filling a page, but now, with the double page spread, it's getting rediculous

Tony;
That's the price of popularity

Izzy:
It just bugs me that she sits in that office doing nothing all day while we are out here busting our creative guts. Then, when she finally does a bit of work, she gets all the credit

Tony:
What makes her an Agony Aunt anyway?

Izzy:
Apparently she has the necessary life experience

Tony:
She's an Aunt?

Izzy:
No, she's had Agony, lots of Agony! Her husband ran off with her sister, her Mum ran off with her brother-in-law and her Dad ran off with the Vicar's wife.

Tony:
My god, really!

Izzy:
and that's why she's not getting married again

Tony:
Because of all the hurt and pain she's gone through

IZZY:
No, because her husband ran off with her sister, her Mum ran off with her brother-in-law and her Dad ran off with the Vicar's wife

i thought this was probably less than the overall composition, with a hint of the meta in it. I'm not certain, I think you might want to re-structure and consider an alternative to much of this.

Quote: jim field @ November 3 2009, 12:37 PM GMT

i thought this was probably less than the overall composition, with a hint of the meta in it. I'm not certain, I think you might want to re-structure and consider an alternative to much of this.

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You've lost me. This is a small chunk of a sitcom based in an office of a National Newspaper. This is the Agony Aunt team, who are tasked with making up the letters that feature in that section.

Probably should have stated that at the start and It's probably a crap idea. Just trying to develop a few ideas

I think it's a really good idea with a lot of possible mileage in it - I'd love to know the kinds of conversations the people writing columns like that actually have. But the way it's done here is a little facetious, a little passive (in that the characters don't really come up with any ideas on the problems that are sent in).

There could be a lot of fun to be had out of the characters dreaming up giving obviously wrong advice to serious but somewhat bizarre problems...

I thought it had potential.

Izzy:
Apparently she has the necessary life experience

Tony:
She's an Aunt?

Izzy:
No, she's had Agony, lots of Agony! Her husband ran off with her sister, her Mum ran off with her brother-in-law and her Dad ran off with the Vicar's wife.

Tony:
My god, really!

Izzy:
and that's why she's not getting married again

Tony:
Because of all the hurt and pain she's gone through

IZZY:
No, because her husband ran off with her sister, her Mum ran off with her brother-in-law and her Dad ran off with the Vicar's wife

I would have done this bit a bit different.

Izzy:
Apparently she has the necessary life experience

Tony:
Oh dear, really? Has she been through a lot?

Izzy:
No. She's an aunt.

It needs running through a spell-checker too.

Quote: Kevin Murphy @ November 3 2009, 1:07 PM GMT

It needs running through a spell-checker too.

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Fayre point

Quote: Minty @ November 3 2009, 10:11 AM GMT

Izzy:
A Man who loves his Nan, an AA man that loves a man with a tan, A Gran who doesn't love her man, a White van man called Stan who got a ban and a man called Dan who thinks he's Peter Pan

View original

That line would be very funny indeed if Izzy had a credible reason to say it.

Maybe Tony describes two 'problem letters' in a way that rhymes accidentally? Then Izzy, as a joke, makes a slightly longer rhyme about three letters (real or imagined)? Then Tony, falling in with the joke the way people do when they're a bit bored at work, makes a slightly longer rhyme?

Then fade out and back in to indicate passage of time OR fade to another scene and come back.

Then Izzy delivers the long line above?

For maximum effectiveness, however, the boys should laugh at the joke for a few seconds then, while they're still laughing, the boss appears in the room and they both jump back to work, looking very industrious.