INT. OFFICE
TWO MEN ARE WALKING THROUGH AN OPEN PLAN OFFICE, THEY APPROACH AN EMPTY DESK
JACK:
So this will be your desk, and this is Frank he's our longest serving employee
JACK GESTURES TOWARD AN ELDERLY MAN IN THE ADJACENT DESK.
PHIL:
Hi Frank, pleased to meet you.
FRANK GIVES A BRIEF WAVE AND GRUNTS
PHIL:
I must say, I'm quite surprised at how downbeat everyone is, I'd have thought this would have been a more jolly place filled with laughter and smiles.
JACK:
Ha! A rookie mistake, sorry to disappoint you but the BBC writers room comedy department is the most joyless place on the planet.
PHIL:
Why is everyone so glum?
JACK PICKS UP A RANDOM SCRIPT AND PASSES IT TO PHIL.
JACK:
Look at this.
PHIL SKIMS THOUGH THE FIRST FEW PAGES AND HIS EXPRESSION CHANGES TO A DEEP FROWN.
PHIL:
Oh dear, that's dreadful, they can't all be this bad surely, you must get some funny stuff occasionally.
JACK:
Nope, I've been here 15 years, we have had 158,000 unsolicited comedy scripts submitted, not one has raised as much as a chuckle. We had a glimmer of hope in 2003 when we thought we heard one of the readers laughing, but it turned out to be just an asthma attack.
PHIL:
So none of them have shown any potential.
JACK:
Well there was the one last week that looked promising, very sad story!
PHIL:
What happened?
JACK:
We had a sketch submitted about a new employee joining the BBC writers room comedy department. It was cleverly written with a good build up and had a quite good self-referential bit near the end, but the last line had such an awful pun that the man reading it ran into the fire escape and hung himself with his own tie.
PHIL:
Oh dear that's a very noose-tie way to die.
