Hi enigmatic thanks for the comments, really useful stuff there. It never occured to me for some reason that even the mildest references to a type of crime recently committed would be cut, but they do seem to have pretty harsh guidelines. I am going to have to start cutting down my longer monologues, I just get carried away and amused with myself.
Definitely agree with the point about my stuff being funnier than the end, I find myself getting into a rhythm then not knowing where to take it. Also the curves sketch was the most satisfying to write, I couldn't help myself throw more references to curves in there, but some of them werent as good as the others.
I'd also agree with your own assessment of your sketch, unfortunately no matter how brilliant that quote from the farmer is they'd never use it unfortunately, which is a shame. I'd try and make the build up more like a job interview with a few questions about relevant previous experience, i.e. Have you ever been startled by a crow? Not for a while no. If you could have one of the following organs would you chose a, a liver, b, a heart, or c....a brain.
I do like the idea of the birds having that insatiable appetite though, probably the funniest way of approaching this story would be making the crows seem more dangerous than they actually are, combined with some silliness from the interview questions and responses.
I try to play with the tempo sometimes, slowing it down deliberately after a quick exchange, I find too much of one or the other takes the edge off. I just finished a sketch for this week where I tried the same thing, deliberately getting some one liners in there back and forth before a slightly elongated ending, culminating in a final one liner, seems to be the format they like.
