I'm not really one for satirical but...

I've been trying to get in newsrevue - this was my last effort when MI6 man has his details listed on facebook.

Any help/comments appreciated

Ahmed

Ha! Sir John Sawyers. We have you in our grasp now

Ravi
An incoming head of MI6, Ahmed. What should we do with him?

Ahmed

Poke him, Ravi. Poke him to within an inch of his life. And send him the Scramble application. We will drive him to talk with our consonant superiority.

Ravi

It won't let me poke him again. He must poke back first.

Ahmed

A poke for a poke? That will not do. How many friends does he have?

Ravi

196, Ahmed.

Ahmed

And us?

Ravi

201.

Ahmed

Ha! Message him that. No, write it on his wall for the world to see. What state secrets do we have so far?

Ravi

He wears Speedos, Ahmed.

Ahmed

The dirty bastard. Block him.

(Police sirens outside)

Ravi

Oh no

Ahmed

How have they found us?

Ravi

They must have followed us.

Ahmed

F**king Twitter.

It's a good idea and the dialogue is nicely sparse. But the bad guys find him on Facebook and got followed on Twitter has probably been written by loads of other writers. Also the 2 characters are very similar and there's no real introduction to what's happening.

So for me it's basically good but I think you need to sharpen it up a bit.

Thanks sootyj -

so:

1) Don't end on an obvious joke

2) Establish differing characters/situation no matter how small the sketch

Would you say it's worth avoiding very obvious stories, as loads of people would have already written them?

I appreciate your help.

It's good to do about 50/50 big and small stories, generally if you explain the story you can use smaller stories.

Characters and funny lines are the thing that sell to NR in my view. e.g. anything an actor can have real fun or a line that's stand out funny on it's own.

Very helpful - thanks very much

Agree in the main with Sootyj.

Just one more thing re. numbers: (being the Devil's Advocate!)

196, Ahmed.

- Is this one, nine, six, Ahmed - or one hundred and ninety-six, Ahmed?

Thread below to help - "Do you write numbers as numbers or words?"

https://www.comedy.co.uk/forums/thread/12950#P409514

Fair enough Morrace - I'd never given that any thought, I'll specify in future sketches - thanks