Economies of scale

I put this in for RFTP having struggled with it and didn't get anywhere. I'd really like some feedback.

Thanks.

FX PUSH-BELL ON COUNTER DINGS

MR WATSON (PARENT):Um, hello? Anybody there?

SECRETARY:Hello yourself, cheeky!

MR WATSON:Er – yes, I'm here for a meeting with the headteacher. I'm Mr Watson, a prospective parent.

SECRETARYk, hot stuff, I'll check the diary for you… Just go through that door there – don't be shy, he won't bite you. Not like me, Grrrrrr. Only joking. Come and say 'hi' on the way out yeah?

MR WATSON:Er, right.

FX DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES

HEADTEACHER:Ah Mr Watson – do take a seat. How are you?

MR WATSON:I'm sorry. I'm a little taken aback by your secretary. She seems quite… young.

HEADTEACHER: Well, she's only 15. Give the girl a chance.

MR WATSON:Ah, that explains it. Well, some of it.

HEADTEACHER:And she's not really my secretary…

MR WATSON:Ah.

HEADTEACHER:…she's my girlfriend.

MR WATSON:WHAT! She's 15 YEARS OLD!

HEADTEACHER:Which is a bit young for me, I admit. I do normally prefer go out with the A Level students, but you must admit, she's all woman.

MR WATSON: Oh my God! Do you have any idea how inappropriate that is for a man in your position?! Of your age?!… Um, what is your age?

HEADTEACHER:Well, I'm not sure that's strictly a professional question, but since you ask, I'm 18 on Sunday.

MR WATSONK, I'm relieved you're not a paedophile headteacher – but I'm wondering why I'm talking to a 6th former.

HEADTEACHER:I'm on my work experience placement

MR WATSON:And the grown-up staff are…?

HEADTEACHER:…on sabbatical. We've saved loads of cash. But don't worry – we have support from a call centre in Mumbai to help with the tricky decisions. And once the recession ends we'll probably get some of the teachers back.

MR WATSONo you have any teachers left at all?

HEADTEACHER:A couple, but I see from your son's application form that he's interested in physics and enjoys responsibility.

MR WATSON:Well yes, he does. Why? Did you want to offer him a place in the school?

HEADTEACHER:Actually, I was thinking more of a place teaching GCSE physics. Does your son feel strongly about the minimum wage, do you know?

Well I don't think the underage secretary actually adds anything to the sketch and makes the first half a bit waffly.

I think you'd have been better off focussing on the 17 year old head teacher on work placement. The call centre gag is good, coupled with the idea of saving money.

Then it doesn't really do anything except end and the punchline of offering the kid a teaching job is a bit obvious, although the minimum wage question is good.

If you go straight in with prospective parent being surprised by such a young head teacher and explore the implications of that in a silly way, you should have a reasonable sketch.

Yeah, listen to Af' -- he talks a lot of sense

Especially the start of the sketch; maybe the recession is the driver but it needs more oomph with the silliness, in my opinion.

Dan

My thoughts were the same as the others. As they say, cut out the secretary at the start which doesn't add anything, plus you can't have the parent only realising the Head is 18 when the Head tells him as that would be the first thing the parent would notice, unless for some (very funny!) reason he can't see the Head/Head's face. Then, as Griff says, focus on the main idea for the main bit of the sketch.

Re. your question on the RFTP sketch and open door shows more generally, remember that you were competing against almost 2000 other sketches, so solid sketches are not enough to stand out. So after you've got some more lines building on the main idea, see if you can add a really unexpected twist to the direction the sketch goes in as it moves to the ending.

Hmmmm, nicely written and some neat dialogue here - I just think it's the idea itself that's the big issue. I don't think a sketch about the recession based in a school would really 'snag' the audience quickly enough. I remember working on a sketch with either James or Rhodri that was based on a crap railway franchise buying Alton Towers, just so I could hang a load of 'hilarious' jokes about people queuing for Nemesis being herded onto a replacement bus service on the back of it. As with this sketch, there were a couple of good lines but the difficultly establishing the tenuous premise, with no real grounding in reality, was always going to scupper it.

Quote: Pripyat @ November 18 2009, 1:51 PM GMT

people queuing for Nemesis being herded onto a replacement bus service on the back of it.

View original

Lovely idea, shame you couldn't get it to work.

... and, bar me, you've had advice from four people who have had stuff on the show and been in the writer's meetings, so it's good advice!

Dan

I think the main thing is the sketch isn't really based around communication or any of the six sub-themes they asked for. They might perhaps cause aggro for themselves if they accept a lot of sketches that aren't to brief.

I'd be interested to know that actually, from any of the folk with RFTP experience - have they ever accepted sketches they thought were great but were hardly to brief?

Quote: Beelzebozo @ November 19 2009, 12:10 AM GMT

I'd be interested to know that actually, from any of the folk with RFTP experience - have they ever accepted sketches they thought were great but were hardly to brief?

View original

Yes, plenty of them. The brief is mainly a handy way of giving a 'feel' of the show to people too lazy to listen to it before submitting sketches.

Quote: Beelzebozo @ November 19 2009, 12:10 AM GMT

I think the main thing is the sketch isn't really based around communication or any of the six sub-themes they asked for. They might perhaps cause aggro for themselves if they accept a lot of sketches that aren't to brief.

I'd be interested to know that actually, from any of the folk with RFTP experience - have they ever accepted sketches they thought were great but were hardly to brief?

View original

Modern communication is a pretty wide brief, so most things could scrape in with a bit of tweaking to the script. But I think you're right that it's difficult to see how this sketch could qualify in it's current format. Maybe if the opening stemmed from a modern/different/odd way for a school to give feedback on a pupil.

I thought it became a show about modern nonsense, rather than communication, very quickly. We talked about the Credit Crunch a lot, for example.