Group sketch No. 4 Stuck in the Middle with You

This one is more a scene from a potential sitcom started by Craig H and added to/ rewritten by:

Chris Forshaw, RobO, JaneP, Ponderer, SwertyD

(I lost the order hence the delay so if any of that is wrong let me know!)

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STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU
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A MAN IN A SUIT AND BLUETOOTH HEADSET (GERALD) SITS IN A PLUSH OFFICE WITH HIS FEET UP ON THE DESK. HIS DESK PHONE IS RINGING. HE WAITS FOR THREE MORE RINGS. HE SIGHS AND TUTS, TAKES OUT HIS MOBILE AND DIALS. WE HEAR THE PHONE RINGING NEXT DOOR.

CUT TO: A WOMAN (TANYA) SITTING IN A SMALL SPARSE OFFICE. THE BUTTONS ON HER PHONE ARE LABELLED "OFFICE 1", "GERALD" & "JAMES".

TANYA PICKS UP THE PHONE

GERALD
(ANNOYED) How long does the phone have to ring before you get it?

TANYA LOOKS UP THROUGH THE OFFICE WINDOW AND STARES AT JAMES. HE IS LOOKING STRAIGHT BACK AT HER.

TANYA
It's on your desk. How was I supposed to know you wanted me to get it?

GERALD
(EXASPERATED) How could you not know? I've sent out three tweets and (POINTS AT COMPUTER) even changed my Facebook status to "waiting for Tanya to answer my phone".

TANYA
I've been busy (HOLDS UP MASSIVE PILE OF PAPERS TO SHOW HIM) doing the work you gave me earlier!

GERALD
Women! I though you were supposed to be able to multi-task.

TANYA
As opposed to your complete inability to single-task?

GERALD
Look -- do I need to come out there and shag some sense into you? (STANDS UP, MIMES SHAGGING IN A RIK MAYALL WAY) Is that what you want? Cos I will lower my standards that far if I have to. (POINTS) *You* appear to have forgotten the meaning of the term "Executive", darling.

TANYA
(HOLDS UP "GUIDE TO WORKING LAW" AND POINTS TO IT) *You* appear to have forgotten the meaning of the term "sexual harrassment". Was the lawyer not clear enough?

TANYA HANGS UP. PHONE RINGS.

TANYA
Good morning, Gerald & Jam......Oh. James.

SHE TURNS TO LOOK THROUGH A SECOND WINDOW. JAMES STICKS HIS TONGUE OUT AT HER.

TANYA
(SIGHS) Yes... I'll put you through.

TANYA BUZZES GERALD ON THE INTERCOM. GERALD IS PULLING FACES AT JAMES THROUGH THE WINDOW. JAMES IS MOCK-PICKING HIS NOSE AND FLICKING IT TOWARDS GERALD. GERALD EVENTUALLY PRESSES THE INTERCOM.

GERALD
(ABRUPT) Yes?

TANYA
It's James.

JAMES IS THROWING V-SIGNS AT GERALD.

GERALD
James who?

GERALD THROWS V-SIGNS BACK AT JAMES

TANYA
James from "Gerald and James". (SIGHS) Your business partner... (POINTS) The man at the *window*!

GERALD
(CHUCKLES -- MOCK OUTRAGE) You mean arse-lick James? (LICKS WINDOW)

TANYA
Will you be taking the call?

GERALD
He probably wants to give my arse a good licking.

GERALD PUTS HIS FISTS TOGETHER AND LICKS UP THE MIDDLE OF THEM THEN POINTS AT JAMES

TANYA
Must we have this every time you two want to talk?

GERALD
Tell him I don't want my arse licking. Go on. I want to hear you say it.

TANYA
(SIGHS AND PRESSES PHONE) James?

JAMES
Where's Gerald?

HE PULLS A FACE AT GERALD.

TANYA
He says he doesn't want his arse licking. (BEAT) Again.

JAMES
Put him on speakerphone. (CLICK) Oi Gezza, you wanker.

JAMES MIMES 'WANKER' AT GERALD. GERALD MIMES 'WANKER' WITH BOTH HANDS BACK AT JAMES.

GERALD
You're the wanker. I'm trying to run our business here – what is it now you tosser?

JAMES
I'm planning another lad's weekend in Bruges.

JAMES GOES CROSS-EYED AND STICKS OUT HIS TONGUE

JAMES (CONT'D)
Are you up for it?

GERALD
Yeah but stay away from the prossies this time you perve. (POINTS) Or at least make sure they're old enough this time!

JAMES
She was street legal dude!

GERALD
In Bankok, maybe!

JAMES
You know what Arsene Wenger says.

GERALD & JAMES (TOGETHER)
If they're good enough, they're old enough!

GERALD AND JAMES ARE IN HYSTERICS. AN EXASPERATED TANYA HANGS UP BOTH PHONES AT ONCE. WE HEAR MUFFLED LAUGHING FROM BOTH OFFICES. HER PHONE RINGS AGAIN.

TANYA
(DOWNBEAT) Gerald and James, children's entertainers. How may I help you?

END

There has been a deafening silence on these joint sketches, possibly because of the element of being in competition makes criticism uncomfortable. But I guess we should analyse the results, and since it is even more bad form to rubbish the efforts of your own co-authors, I'll start the ball rolling by commenting on this one.

I do not want to offend those who worked on this, who I am sure laboured manfully to wring some humour out of the material (and who I know are individually capable of better), but I don't think this sketch (is it intended as a sketch?) works. The reveal, that these immature, slightly pervy, twats are children's entertainers, did not come as that much of a shock; having watched Saturday morning television, I always kind of figured children's entertainers were like that.

I would be very interested to learn more about the genesis of the sketch, in particular if the punchline was the starting point, or a twist someone added to try to resolve a sketch they felt was otherwise lacking in substance.

It does though seem to bear out what I see as the basic problem with the joint sketch concept, that the potential of a sketch is determined by the initial premise - once you have that right the sketch largely writes itself; the rest is tweaking and editing (which is always subjective), and finding a way to finish it. If the premise does not hold, any number of writers will not be able to make anything of it.

I am interested in further collaborative exercises, because a different perspective really can help in focussing a premise and unlocking the funny, but this approach may not be the way forward.

This didn't work for me. I think Timbo is right, in that the group sketch idea can only work if the basic idea is a good one, and even then it's really got to be a sketch. I'm not sure this kind of sitcom scene can ever work that well as a collective piece of writing. The sitcom characters have got to live and breathe and that isn't easy to achieve when several people are putting their own spin on things along the way. Sorry.

I'll have to agree with the previous posts that the punch is obvious and a bit weak.

The line "do I need to come out there and shag some sense into you?" did make me giggle though so good work whoever wrote that line.

I might post up my version of this which would have been the first edit of the original. I can kind of see how this evolved from mine. It's been toned down quite a bit though.

Quote: Chris Forshaw @ April 22 2009, 12:54 AM BST

I might post up my version of this which would have been the first edit of the original. I can kind of see how this evolved from mine. It's been toned down quite a bit though.

View original

Sorry, I think I may have scuppered this one, unintentionally! I agree it's not totally working but that's not the fault of any particular writer (apart from me maybe!)

It started out with promising characters but not much direction - when it came to me it was nothing like the kind of thing I'd normally write to be honest, so I struggled with whether to continue with it like that or tone it down which probably ruinied the whole joke! So it ends up neither one thing nor the other.

This is where the idea of a 'joint sketch' can get a bit messy. If we treat it as fun and are happy with anyone totally rewriting the idea from scratch then it stays in the spirit of the chinese whisper and will totally change from beginning to end. But it's not really a collaboration then and the efforts of those early on can be totally lost.

Or do we say you have to stick with the original script and tone, and just improve on individual lines as it goes on? Or have some kind of ongoing debate - editorial chat? I think 'on line' with people who don't know each other that's pretty difficult though.

Alternatively do we group people according to pre and post watershed! Because both are valid and funny but they're very different styles. I felt a bit like Mary Whitehouse here but I know if this group had had the freedom to write anything it would have worked better!

I hope I've not offended anyone here! As is obvious from the BSG boards we all have very different tastes in comedy. This was a learning curve for me too and I guess I've learnt I'm not great at writing out of my comfort zone. E.g. I love The Thick of it - but I couldn't write it!

I'm also pretty sure I got one of the names wrong on this one - I'm really sorry if I did and I'm going to double check but it may take a while as I'm off to work now and out tonight!

All that aside I did feel this idea had progressed character wise and had some nice lines in there! Each version made me laugh at different bits.

Another issue with writing sketche like this is v limited time. I think with more work and by making the two male characters a little different from each other there's potential in the set up as part of a sitcom which was the author's original intent.

I'll scarper now shall I?

Jx

Right. I got this at the very end and, have to be honest, wasn't that impressed with it. It felt more like three or four different sketch ideas pasted together, rather than a single, solid idea. It also seemed very The Thick Of It (in terms of the shouty, abuse nature of the content) which is fine for sitcom, but neither here nor there for a sketch.

I thought it was a sketch (nobody had mentioned anything about it being a scene from a sitcom till I read this very thread -- so apologies if that was the original intent!) so I tried to turn it into one somehow. I found it very difficult to *not* rewrite a lot of it, which I think may be a difficulty in this sort of setup; you want to put your mark on it, but you don't want to rewrite it completely.

I felt I changed more than I should have, but just didn't think it worked very well before that. (I can see I was effectively trying to change the premise of the sketch, even though I was the last writer on the list!) I still don't think it works particularly well, but more changes would have been pretty much a complete rewrite.

My approach to it, as a sketch, would have been totally different if I knew it was supposed to be a scene from a sitcom. As Jane says, if people agree to not minding total rewrites from subsequent contributors, then it might work in a better way than us pussy-footing around each other not wanting to offend. Of course, the other side of the coin says it's supposed to be a bit of fun, which it is (time-pressure not included!)

Dan

ALOT to respond to here guys but I don't have much time so will just give a small conclusion of my thoughts.

Like most of you, I do think this concept is fun and a great learning experience for me, but I really don't think it's working as far as creating an actual joint sketch goes. I for one don't have what it takes to delete or edit anyone else's work substantially - but this is probably down to me being unexperienced and less confident than alot of you. But the way I see it, whoever goes 1st/2nd, there work come the finished sketch may be unrecognisable or non-existant - which, to me, isn't really fair.

You can see how the complete overhaul of someone elses writing is having an effect on the forum too - ie. we now have 2-3 variations posted as some writers parts were indeed completely deleted, removed from the sketch entirely, re-written.

As far as my initial idea on this particular sketch goes, the characters have been mangled and interpreted differently to me and in turn their personalities have been twisted around. The characters I created were nothing like those in the final draft.

Did I say small conclusion?

Anyway, I do like the honest, constructive and in-depth feedback. It's helping me a great deal in solo sketches/ideas as well as in writing the joint sketches.

Craig

Quote: Timbo @ April 22 2009, 12:34 AM BST

There has been a deafening silence on these joint sketches, possibly because of the element of being in competition makes criticism uncomfortable. But I guess we should analyse the results, and since it is even more bad form to rubbish the efforts of your own co-authors, I'll start the ball rolling by commenting on this one.

I do not want to offend those who worked on this, who I am sure laboured manfully to wring some humour out of the material (and who I know are individually capable of better), but I don't think this sketch (is it intended as a sketch?) works. The reveal, that these immature, slightly pervy, twats are children's entertainers, did not come as that much of a shock; having watched Saturday morning television, I always kind of figured children's entertainers were like that.

I would be very interested to learn more about the genesis of the sketch, in particular if the punchline was the starting point, or a twist someone added to try to resolve a sketch they felt was otherwise lacking in substance.

It does though seem to bear out what I see as the basic problem with the joint sketch concept, that the potential of a sketch is determined by the initial premise - once you have that right the sketch largely writes itself; the rest is tweaking and editing (which is always subjective), and finding a way to finish it. If the premise does not hold, any number of writers will not be able to make anything of it.

I am interested in further collaborative exercises, because a different perspective really can help in focussing a premise and unlocking the funny, but this approach may not be the way forward.

View original

A very thoughtful post Timbo, thanks. As I added the punchline I thought I might respond (I'll try to be as thoughtful).

You got it exactly right with the punchline, it was an attempt to punctuate a sketch (or scene) which more or less meandered to a halt. I can't claim to be very proud of it, but I felt it necessary to have something and nothing better sprang to mind.

There were certainly a lot of problems with this collaboration. Personally I was so uncomfortable with the premise and treatment when it reached me that I almost backed out. I think points made on here about strength of premise have some merit. However, I'd say that more pertinent in this case is that, whatever the problems with writing a sketch this way, there are even more when it is essentially a sitcom scene because a consistent view of the characters is so important.

I was certainly partially responsible for changing the charaterisation at the start of the scene, but lacked the balls to carry it through because that would have left pretty much nothing of what came to me. This is at the heart of this problem I think. We want to leave our mark but don't want to disrespect previous contributors. Of course, the irony is that if we all change different bits then they end up feeling disrespected anyhow.

I'd be happy to share my 'before' and 'after' to this in the interests of learning if others wish to do so, particularly as I feel that Dan did a reasonable job of turd polishing (albeit as he said opeating at the margins) so at least it would exonerate him. However, I wonder whether we'll end up with a bit of a slanging match as on the first thread Jane set up on this.

In short: bugger. I'll now hunker down for the backlash.

Well, as a non-participant I think the whole thing is interesting and hopefully people aren't going to be too precious! It's a bit of fun after all. As well as a bit of a learning exercise.

Reasonable?!?! You git...

Dan

* dodges bullets *

I take full responsibility for the premise.

In hindsight it wasn't the greatest idea for me to 'start us off'. As many of you know I am new to writing and was naive in thinking my great idea would somehow be catapulted by more experienced writers. I did think of it more as a sitcom scene than a sketch and didn't think it would make all that much of a difference whether my fellow writers were aware of whether it was a sketch or a sitcom scene - I've learned another lesson.

In starting the sketch I didn't actually have any gags, it was more an introduction of the characters and their personas and I left it wide open for the next writer to take it in any direction they pleased, again, in hindsight, a bad idea. I was presumptious in thinking those after me would somewhow take on the vision I had of my characters and bring the best out of them.

Craig

Most people writing sketches probably produce one in five(?) that are good. I think it may be better for the group to write several and then pick the best ones for posting.

Quote: Wildjesusfishkid @ April 23 2009, 11:48 AM BST

Most people writing sketches probably produce one in five(?) that are good. I think it may be better for the group to write several and then pick the best ones for posting.

View original

Yep, I can see the sense in that although it would mean asking a lot more from people in terms of commitment, organisation, debate etc But it would cut out the pressure of every one having to work and be posted!

I was thinking more along the lines of Timbo's idea where we could post an idea in critique offering it out for people to write a different version if they choose to. That way people could choose which ones to work on. Perhaps it's not much different to the normal critique posts except it's an open invitation to rewrite someone else's idea without feeling you're treading on their toes!

Jx

Quote: Jane P @ April 24 2009, 9:28 AM BST

I was thinking more along the lines of Timbo's idea where we could post an idea in critique offering it out for people to write a different version if they choose to. That way people could choose which ones to work on. Perhaps it's not much different to the normal critique posts except it's an open invitation to rewrite someone else's idea without feeling you're treading on their toes!

Jx

View original

Yup, exactly what I was thinking. I think this is Morraces hobby anyway.

Quote: swerytd @ April 22 2009, 11:28 PM BST

Reasonable?!?! You git...

Dan

View original

Got to keep you on your toes.

Quote: Badge @ April 22 2009, 11:27 PM BST

Well, as a non-participant I think the whole thing is interesting and hopefully people aren't going to be too precious! It's a bit of fun after all. As well as a bit of a learning exercise.

View original

Hope I didn't come across as precious, I was just trying to (over)think it through. I am happy to take crit and give it reasonably directly. I have just noted in other threads how this can easily spiral out of control. Personally I don't see why it does, but there you are.

Quote: Craig H @ April 23 2009, 9:56 AM BST

* dodges bullets *

I take full responsibility for the premise.

I did think of it more as a sitcom scene than a sketch and didn't think it would make all that much of a difference whether my fellow writers were aware of whether it was a sketch or a sitcom scene - I've learned another lesson.

Craig

View original

I don't think the premise was the big issue as stated before, I just think that it needs to be a sketch.

Quote: Jane P @ April 24 2009, 9:28 AM BST

I was thinking more along the lines of Timbo's idea where we could post an idea in critique offering it out for people to write a different version if they choose to. That way people could choose which ones to work on. Perhaps it's not much different to the normal critique posts except it's an open invitation to rewrite someone else's idea without feeling you're treading on their toes!

Jx

View original

That sounds very good, I have never felt OK re-wrting others sketches without permission, but this would make that OK, and hopefully get around the sensitivity of the other method.

Sorry for such a long post. Have been away for a few days.