NJ: Three Sketches

Submitted three sketches to Newsjack this week and none of them made it. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!

COOKERY SKETCH

JUSTINLast week a man was stopped at Gatwick airport for carrying several bags full of dried caterpillars which he claimed to be planning to eat. Unlike him, I have successfully managed to sneak a bug onto a plane before, although to be honest I didn't find out that the tapeworm was inside me until a week later. It turns out the man was in fact a famous chef from an Istanbul cookery show; let's take a look.

GRAMS MASTER CHEF MUSIC

VOICEOVERAnd welcome back to Masterchef Turkey! Our contestant Ali has just presented his dish of beetle pie to the judges; let's see what they make of it.

JUDGE 1So Ali, what inspired you to bake a pie with live beetles inside of it?

ALIWell it really comes back to my Grandma. Every weekend I would visit her and she would cook me a pie filled with delicious goat's meat and I remember thinking; this would be much better with beetles inside it.

JUDGE 1And how did you achieve such a dry, flaky crust?

ALILike the beetles, the crust is from my garden. It is dirt.

JUDGE 1Well the dish is magnificent; it reminds me of the time my cat was crushed by a boulder. Tragic, yet delicious. I give it a nine out of ten.

ALIThank you judge.

JUDGE 2Well, I'm afraid I don't agree. The concept of a beetle-based dish has been done many times before. I even ate Beetl-os for my breakfast. It is nothing compared to that exotic dish you prepared last week, what was it again?

ALIHorsemeat lasagne.

JUDGE 2Yes, that was much more original. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give this dish a two out of ten.

VOICEOVERJoin us after the break where our next contestant will present his dish to the judges; a caterpillar risotto.

RATS SKETCH

JUSTINScientists in America have successfully managed to allow two rats to communicate through brain waves. An exciting idea that if implemented into humans could finally put an end to stupid questions like 'what number am I thinking of?' Newsjack went behind the scenes in order to capture the initial announcement of this breakthrough.

SCIENTIST 1(LAUGHING) I've finally done it!

SCIENTIST 2(SIGH) What is it now?

SCIENTIST 1You know how I tried to give that chicken human legs?

SCIENTIST 2Yes...

SCIENTIST 1Well I gave up on that and connected two rats' brains together through the Internet!

SCIENTIST 2What, like a computer mouse?

SCIENTIST 1No, no, no. Alive rats, I've connected their minds so they share their senses and thoughts. You should see them play I Spy!

SCIENTIST 2Well, why?

SCIENTIST 1Isn't it obvious? Soon I'll be able to connect hundreds; no thousands of rats' brains together and then connect their brains to mine! Allowing me to form a suit of armor constructed entirely out of rats!

SCIENTIST 2Well that's nice and all, but the funding we received was supposed to be spent on developing a vaccine for malaria. What are we gonna tell the government?

SCIENTIST 1Think about it Claire; what are they gonna want more? A cure for malaria or super telepathic rat suits?

SCIENTIST 2Honestly I don't know what to make of this, next you'll be telling me you've created cats that shoot lasers out of their eyes.

SCIENTIST 1Well I've been trying but they just seem to keep exploding.

IPAD SKETCH

JUSTINLast week a five year-old boy spent £1,700 while playing a game on an iPad. This being the first time I've seen so much money disappear so quickly since my second divorce. With us now is one of the game's developers, Rachel Smith. Now Rachel, many people have said that it was wrong of you to aim a game at children where you can spend this much money, calling you, quote, "massive prats". How do you respond to these people?

CAROLWell Justin, first of all I'd just like to clarify that Rainbow Kitten's Guide to the ABC is not a game for children. We have placed a strict metaphorical 18 rating on it to ensure kids don't play it.

JUSTINWell some might say that with a name like that you're clearly targeting children. I mean, even the in-game currency is chocolate coins.

CAROLAnd what does chocolate do Justin, hmm? It rots our teeth, inflicts us with diabetes and murders our young!

JUSTINThe first level is named 'A is for Apple.'

CAROLYes with apple being a metaphor for Hitler and the state of Germany in the 1930s. It really isn't that hard to understand.

JUSTINBut surely you can understand how this can misinterpreted by a child or a parent?

CAROLIt's what our fans want Justin. Just last week we sent out a survey asking if they thought the game was clearly aimed at adults and both of them said yes. Babyeater Inc. is a mature company making mature games for mature people, and anyone who says otherwise is a big poo-poo face.

JUSTINWell, thank you for your time.

I really like the third of these sketches and it's a neat idea. Companies shamelessly targetting children with games. Think that's a good sketch and a good length. The feedback I'd give on that is try and make something happen in it, give it some action. Perhaps could even be playing the video games. If it's just two people talking it's best to get them interrupted, over the top accents etc. to have the radio equivalent of 'action'.

On the other two the sketch premise seems a little straight line - chef caught with caterpillars to Masterchef, Rats to Scientists with rats. Try and develop and twist the premise a little more to make it stand out from the rest.

But some funny line in there nonetheless.

Since starting this, StephenM has posted so apologies if the comments overlap - hopefully they don't contradict!

Cookery sketch: nicely tightly written with a potentially good premise. Some thoughts to ponder.
It's not a story I spotted so I don't know whether the man was Turkish, but in even he was, I would have ignored that fact and kept the sketch simpler. It didn't add anything.
You've got the opportunity to then build the sketch with ever more bizarre garden animal based dishes and amusing sauces. The comedy 'rule of three' lends itself to a starter, main course and dessert.
I think they've done with horse meat jokes unless you've got a different angle on it. It would have been nice to see a twist at the end. Could he have cooked Justin's tortoise?

Rats: liked this a lot including the silly intro. Might have been better if there was real action going on - he could have been in the middle of his experiments rather than just talking about them. You could have had seem nice lab F/X.
Not sure about the suit of armour. I thought that was leading neatly to a rat superbrain connected to a human and then you could have concluded the sketch with the scientist thinking like a giant rat in some way.
On a point of format. I found the SCIENTIST 1 and 2 names distracting. I'd give them clearly distinct names even if you don't actually refer to them in the dialogue. It's easier for the cast too as they usually mark up their lines.

iPad: I didn't really get into this. It's quite confusing and doesn't seem to develop. If you did have a premise in mind, it hasn't come across.

Hope those thoughts are helpful.
Alison

Thank you for the feedback guys, very helpful!