Newsjack entry

Hitachi Trains Story

MILES

This weeks announcement that Hitachi would be building a new train factory in County Durham came as welcome news in the north east where it is expected to generate more than 500 jobs. But sceptics are stating that the government should be investing in British train building. David Whitelaw reports from Sodor Island

DAVID

Thank you Miles. I'm at Sodor Station with Sir Topham Hatt, the Fat Controller. Sir Topham, has this announcement come as a suprise?

SIR TOPHAM

No, this is what we expected really. This coalition government would rather subsidise foreign companies than invest in British ones.

DAVID

Do you think that the government believes your trains can't realistically compete with these new electric trains?

SIR TOPHAM

How do you mean?

DAVID

It's been suggested that your train stock is a little dated.

SIR TOPHAM

Nonsense! We certainly have a more traditional design to our engines but we have been producing automonous, driverless trains for over sixty years. In fact, our artificial intelligence systems are light years ahead of anything Hitachi could produce, yet, no government has ever taken an interest. I blame the RMT!

DAVID

You say light years ahead but you've hardly convinced the world that this is the future of rail transport. Your Henry class of trains has a particuarly poor safety and reliability record.

(A sad toot of a trains horn can be heard in the background)

SIR TOPHAM

True, but our Thomas Class has proven to be a rather useful engine. (more)

(Happy toot in the background)

SIR TOPHAM

(continued) And the Henry class has given us some teething troubles but we're planning on decomissioning them within the year

(Sound of angry tooting and steam hissing)

ENGINEER
(distant)

Henry! No!

(Sounds of a commotion followed by a crash)

SIR TOPHAM

Henry!

DAVID

Back to the studio

(END)

Hi Sean.

It's a nice enough sketch but there's no actual topical satire in it, so I can see why it wasn't taken by Newsjack.

The idea is probably worth pursuing as a stand alone sketch though.

Any suggestions for improvement? I also wrote a trailer for "Commando - The Video Game" and submitted that

The most awesome action film of the 80's is coming to a console near you

Commando - The video game

Play as Colonel John Matrix as he fights against the clock to save his daughter

Enjoy the most amazing array of weaponry ever assembled in a video game!

Keep the hurt comin' with infinite ammo and no reload button!

Use the one-liner feature after dispatching enemies to earn bonus points

Pipe throwing, wood chopping, bullet spraying action that'll keep you going til you're dead tired!

Order today!

Where's the joke, Sean? They actually made a video game of Commando in the 80's anyway. If you're looking for a satirical angle, pitch a game based on the bungled SAS mission in Libya, for example.

Good idea. Perhaps a new commander and conquer type strategic game based around the defence spending cuts

That would be more like it. What you're doing is probably more in the area of RFTP. Newsjack is supposed to be topical satire so you actually need to do something about current news events. Trying to twist them is good but I think you definitely need to remember the topical satire in there.

Feel free to ignore me though, I barely managed to get a couple of one-liners on to Newsjack in series 2.

See I thought the train one was topical but then it's been big news locally (I'm from the North East myself) but the rest of the country might be more interested in the effects of inflation on the price of cream cakes or whatever.

Must read more papers without nuddy ladies no the inside front bit to get a better bead on current events I suppose

Newsjack will only be interested in doing stories that the fast majority of people will have heard of. That train story won't be known outside of your area. If it's not been on the 6 O'Clock news, it's not really big enough.

But if you wanted to pursue this story, think about it some more. Hitachi making trains. What do they normally make? Electronic goods. So there's your in. Someone trying to take a defective train back to the shop because it doesn't work, but they don't have the receipt. What's Thomas the Tank Engine got to do with it?

Quote: sean knight @ March 10 2011, 1:10 PM GMT

Good idea. Perhaps a new commander and conquer type strategic game based around the defence spending cuts

View original

There you go. Much more like it (although I would think, by week five, Newsjack would have been sent loads of these).

If you want to submit something to Newsjack for the final week, my advice is listen to the show, pick a sketch you like, write it out, analyse the structure and try to replicate it with a new story.

I just saw it as an opportunity to write a sketch about Thomas the Tank engine as I came up with the concept a while ago that it would be a good example against mass automation in the transport industry.
I thought I'd tied the two in pretty coherently

You did. But as you've just said, it was a sketch you wanted to do about Thomas the Tank Engine, not some topical satire using the Island of Sodor as a framing device.

The story might have been topical but the sketch itself didn't contain anything topical. That's what I was getting at.

Fair comment. I was more replying to RJ's comments about what Hitachi had to do with Thomas the Tank Engine.

Just got to wait for a post office story now so I can skit the Greendale Special Delivery Service

Err they voted to strike this week?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12649306

Re: the original sketch, a few things that you need to do for Newsjack. Miles very rarely passes an interview over to someone else and only will if there is reason to. In this case, he could do the interview himself. Also by passing it over, you'd need three males in the cast; there are only two.

Secondly, the first line is an opportunity for a joke, a killer joke. A joke they may use, even if they don't use your sketch, so you should always, always, ALWAYS put one in.

Apart from that, I thought you took too long to get to the point, and certainly five or six lines before there was anything resembling a joke. That won't work in your favour.

Dan

Thanks guys for all your feedback. This is a sketch that I'd like to develop but it's going to have to take a back seat as I'm doing the first polish on my sci fi drama and watching four poorly children which in itself is turning into either a sitcom or a tragedy.