Beheading gold

My first sketch for ages...

Inspired by Sootys hanging sketch.

Henry : We cross now to Edward at the Tower where the finals of the beheading tournament are well underway. Edward, I would think that home advantage counts for something here.

Edward: Well absolutely Henry. The English headsman could hit this block with his eyes shut.

Henry: A problem I understand the Spanish had in the qualify rounds.

Edward: Yes, a school boy error really. Putting on the mask the wrong way round. He stood no chance.

Henry: So how is the mood there?

Edward: As you would expect. The parotic fever is rising and it isn’t just down to another outbreak of the plague. We are into round 4 here and the English headsman is still clean. No faults at all.

Henry : Most people listening will be familiar with standard executions but how does Olympic level beheading differ?

Edward: Simple really Henry. 10 rounds, 10 necks to hit. A clean removal of the head with one blow is the aim and scores no penalty points. Penalty points are added for every additional blow of the axe. And any failures to actually hit the neck, hits to the shoulder blades or shaving off the top of the head for example are awarded penalty points by the panel of three judges.

Henry: There was controversy in the qualify rounds I understand Edward?

Edward: Indeed, the French competitor attempted to use a homemade contraption to remove his heads. All he had to do was pull a rope, no skill or artistry involved in the work at all. The other competitors objected and it was ruled illegal by the judges.

Henry: that wasn’t the end of the matter though was it?

Edward: No the French objected. They got out the rule book which simply states that a bladed instrument be used in all competitions. The judges conferred but decided against upholding the appeal.

Henry: So In the rules but not really in the spirit of the Olympics. Fair enough. So is the English headsman on a sure route to gold?

Edward: Its head to head at the moment with the Arabian athlete who has really been putting in some hard training with the infidels back home. We will know more when you come back later.

Henry: Thank you Edward. And now a word from one our sponsors. A Monsieur Gieuant who is marketing his brand new industrial sized semi automatic vegetable slicer.

Its a good idea and loads of gags along the way

But edit there's way tooi many words

Quite wordy but it had funny moments. I liked it.

Agree with pevious posers, good but long. I liked the 'flow' of it though.

Agree with other comments. Also it's a bit of a static two-way, which is a shame because you have all these great events/controversies that we could be seeing (or commentating on live) but they are all delivered second-hand via the reporter. You've got plenty of action there, so let's see/hear it.

Thanks for the comments. So it wasnt that bad for a first time out the traps for a while. Yes there does seem to be a lot of words on that page when you look again.

Badge - I was kind of thinking of this as a radio sketch. Easier to have sounds in the background. But yes no reason it can't be delivered "live" as such.

I looked at it and had some ideas for lines like

"the catholic church is sponsoring this event, they've provided all the money."

".....and the victims"

"the french have been disqualified for use of a performance ehancing device"

"...a guillotine and the spanish lad made a school boy error and burned his victims on the stake"