Hi all would really appreciate any feedback please

LIFE’S TOO SHORT
EPISODE 1- THE BIRTHDAY PARTY (first two scenes)

Written by
Dale Griffiths

SCENE 1. INT. RON’S FLAT - DAY
RON AND LIAM ARE PLAYING MONOPOLY. LIAM IS NOT BEING VERY ENTHUSIASTIC.

RON:
Ah ha, water works, do you want to buy it. It is still free.

LIAM:
Who cares? Do you really think I’m bothered about this stupid board game.

RON:
But you like monopoly. You’ve always liked it.

LIAM:
I’ve always hated it. It reminds me of wet summer caravan holidays with my parents in North Wales.(SCRATCHES HIS ARM)

RON:
Well you’ve hardly bought anything. How can you enjoy it if you don’t get into the spirit of the game. You are just aimlessly wandering round the board collecting bits of money but hardly any property.

LIAM:
It’s very indicative of my life at the moment. No property, renting a shoddy 2 bedroom house, aimlessly wandering through life and approaching middle age.

RON:
Do you want to be banker, is that it. Here (GOES TO GIVE LIAM THE BANKER HAT)

LIAM:
I don’t want to be sodding banker.(SCRATCHES HIS ARM)

RON:
Why do you keep scratching, has that jumper got fleas in it.

LIAM:
Oh the Doctor says it is probably just a reaction to some of the chemicals we use at work. I tell you what it is, a stress rash. Look, see that’s something else to worry about, how can I have a party with this. You see it’s a downward spiral, I get worried, I get a rash, I get stressed about the rash, so the stress causes the rash to get worse. Look at me I look like a freak, this is probably going to spread. Maybe it’s necrosing faciitis, heard of that. You’re whole body can be eaten away in a matter of days.(SHOWS RON THE RASH)

RON:
You haven’t got necrosing faciitis, we live in a first world country. (LOOKS AT ARM) You can hardly see anything, just wear a long sleeve top to the party and get some antiseptic cream.

RON:
Why don't you go and buy a new outfit for your party. That'll cheer you up a bit.

LIAM:
How long have you known me?

RON:
Since we were 10.

LIAM:
Yes 25 years, and you still don’t really know me. Since when has going out buying new clothes cheered me up, it just gets me more depressed. “Go out and buy a new shirt”. Do you know how hard it is for me to buy clothes? Whatever style of shirt I buy, the colour, cut and quality matters not one whit they all make me look like a darts player.

RON:
Well the party will be great. Look how much I enjoyed my 35th, snogged a few women, bit of slow dancing. It’s always an ego boost.

LIAM:
Who am I going to snog. Who?( SCRATCHING HIS ARM)

RON:
We’ll get some spin the bottle games going. I’ll weight the bottle some how so that it stops on you.

LIAM:
I don’t want you to rig any party games so that I can get lucky. If I can’t genuinely get anyone interested in me without any gimmicks or tricks then forget it. Spin the bottle, why not put a sign up saying “kiss the freak and win a vodka jelly”. (RON IS NOT LISTENING AND HAVING HIS GO ON THE MONOPOLY BOARD).

RON:
(MOVING HIS PIECE) Five, six ha, water works, well I’m having that seeing as you didn’t. Building up a pretty mean property portfolio here Liam my lad. Your go.

LIAM:
(THROWS 11) Hmmm.

RON:
Ha, same as last time.

LIAM:
Is that the one you’ve got two hotels on, sure you’re not supposed to build multiple hotels. Here I’ve got this (HANDS OVER HIS MONOPOLY MONEY), two stations. The rest is mortgaged.

RON:
Still a bit short.

LIAM:
(TAKES OUT HIS ACTUAL WALLET) Tell you what, here have this (THROWS WALLET ON THE BOARD), and a watch, a ring, a pullover (GOES TO TAKE OFF HIS JUMPER).

RON:
Liam, stop it… I don’t want the jumper.

LIAM:
No, of course. Why would you?
CUT TO:

SCENE 2. INT. RON’S FLAT - DAY
RON, JANE CHATTING, DAVE ENTERS

RON:
The way he’s talking. I doubt there’s going to be a party.(DAVE ENTERS)

DAVE:
He’s cancelling the party?

RON:
No it’s not definite yet, I’m just saying I wouldn’t be surprised.

DAVE:
A party and then a holiday, what’s he got to feel so bad about. I haven’t had a holiday in over a year and no one threw a party for my thirty fifth.

RON:
That’s because you were on holiday when you turned thirty five. The Cayman Islands remember.

DAVE:
That wasn’t a holiday, it was the world karaoke championship. Anyway, where is Liam going.

RON:
Rhyll with his parents.

DAVE:
What again?

JANE:
They’ve got the caravan there. Silly not to use it.

DAVE:
Thirty five and still going on holiday with the parents, that does sound bad. Are you still going..

RON:
Skiing, yes, Val d’Isere. The cabin’s there, we have the ski pass, silly not to use it. It can be tiresome though, keep going to the same place.

DAVE:
Must be a bummer.

RON:
But I’m hoping Beverly will come, that should reduce the..bummer.

DAVE:
Asked her yet?

RON:
I was going to surprise her at the party with it. So you know what, Liam better not cancel.

DAVE:
You’re telling me, I’ve asked Suki down from Sc**thorpe. That’s a hell of a drive.

RON:
You said she doesn’t have a car.

DAVE:
She’s hiring one. It’s booked and paid for, seventy notes and I’m going halves so if he thinks he’s going to cancel at this late stage?

RON:
So you’re paying thirty five pounds for the company of a lady for the whole weekend. More than you usually spend.

DAVE:
Hey, she’s worth it. You’ve not met her.

JANE:
Look, Liam is feeling a bit vulnerable at the moment. You’re both bringing people to the party. He needs support from all of us, not to be hassled into doing something he’s not happy with.

DAVE:
Yeah, to all intents and purposes he’ll be middle aged. Maybe he’s having a mid life crisis or something. I keep waiting for that to hit me, my dad got it bad in his late 30’s. He enrolled with one of those Thai bride agencies, 17 years of marriage (CLICKS HIS FINGERS) up the Swanny.

RON:
A Thai lady, fancy that.

JANE:
(TO DAVE) So you should understand a bit about what Liam’s going through. Has your dad ever regretted his decision?

DAVE:
Not at all. She cooks, cleans, the sex is great. Have you ever had a Thai foot massage. It’s nice letting a woman walk all over you for a change.

RON:
(LOOKING INTO THE DISTANCE) A Thai lady.

JANE:
So is this,Suki from Thailand.

DAVE:
Yep, she’s my cousin.

JANE:
Dave, that’s sick.

DAVE:
She’s only my cousin in law, no law against that.
CUT TO:

I did admittedly skim a little - it was a full episode and, to quote, Life's Too Short - but it did seem to be good. The jokes were well set up and the humour never seemed forced.

Ha you're right sure you've got better things to do but thanks very much for the look through and the comment.

cheers,
Dale.

No, I had homework :-(

I love the little monopoly segments. Maybe it's because I remember my own hours of demented boredom over the board.

"RON:
Tell you what, lets go out and get some stuff for you’re 35th birthday party."

Be careful of exposition - laying everything out like that can seem forced. Ask yourself: would you say that to a mate?

Also, as touched on by Cinnamon, swathes of writing can be off putting - I'd suggest laying it out with more spaces and posting less of a chunk at a time - more people are liable to read and comment that way - why not edit this thread to just the first 3 scenes, and I for one promise to read it and give feedback.

Thanks Stylo for the comments and advice, I'll chop it down.

Hi Dale I liked this reminded a bit of Bob and Margret if you remember or ever saw that.

Howvere i think that Liam should be more likeable, he needs some redeeming features. But thats only an opinion and you may have already done that in the rest of the episode

Like some of the others I originally found the amount and layout a bit off-putting and it took a while to get past that. But when I read just the first three scenes I thought the writing was very good.

A few of the lines don't seem quite natural so maybe you should read it out loud and see how you feel saying the lines, do they come out naturally? But maybe you already did that? Just a thought!

I liked it and I don't usually like a group of friends discussing something normal like a birthday party but this had some very nice lines and subtle gags in it.

That's better - I like Liam's dour character - hopefully things go from bad to worse for him. However, you need to inject more humour if it's going to work as a sitcom... but a good start nonetheless.

Hi all thanks so much for the help and advice, this is a bit of a shame no I've clicked reply I can't see any of your names, anyway I can remember your comments.

in response to your comments,
Liam doesn't really have many redeeming features, he's a bit of a whinger.
I admit I hadn't verbalised the dialogue and I do need to work on this side of things.
I'll work on trying to put some more humour into the scene, do you think this should be in dialogue i.e. more gags or something a bit more unexpected happen whilst they are playing the board game.

once again thanks. My new comedy books arrived so I'm gonna do some serious learning as they both take pride of place on the bedside table.

Hi Dale, inserting jokes is quite easy but it depends on how much you are willing to change the style of the piece. Take the first line 'Ah ha, water works' you could have Liam respond saying something like 'Ron let it go, I cried once and we agreed to neither mention the customs and excise inccident again' then Ron says 'No I meant I landed on the Water works.'

Ha, thanks Ajp I get what you mean. I suppose it's about trying to find the balance and not trying to put in too many gags. I think it works quite well in Lee Mack's Not going out but at times I think they over do it a bit. But then Lee Mack is a stand up comedian and was the co-writer.

Quote: Dale Griffiths @ September 18, 2007, 7:40 PM

Ha, thanks Ajp I get what you mean. I suppose it's about trying to find the balance and not trying to put in too many gags. I think it works quite well in Lee Mack's Not going out but at times I think they over do it a bit. But then Lee Mack is a stand up comedian and was the co-writer.

View original

Exactly, its all down to the opinion of the writer as to how he wants the script to turn out. So in other words ignore all advice

Dale, have you considered re-imagining this as a radio piece? There's hardly anything going on visually so it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

I agree with ajp that it needs more jokes it it's going to be any kind of sitcom. There's certainly plenty of scope for gags in the 'mismatched blokes' genre of comedy.

Also, I don't think it's a good idea to speak about one of your main characters as having no redeeming features. If all he does is whinge, an audience will quickly tire of him. At the very least he needs to be funny. Imagine Jez from Peep Show if all he did was piss and moan.

Lastly, did anyone else enjoy the fact that the swear-blocker censored the c**t in sc**thorpe?

Yeah, they're still trying to find out who put it in there..