Coach Driver Sketch

AJP mentioned that he wanted to see some of my darker stuff, so I accepted the challenge and came up with this one just now.

Int. Coach

Len, the coach driver, is driving a coach load of old people. He is speaking over the microphone.

Len: So, we'll soon be driving through the historic town of Morksley. A town which was home to the infamous serial killer, Ron McDougal.

The camera shows an old woman smiling obliviously.

Len: He murdered 17 women all over the course of 3 years. He got caught, of course (SIGHS). It was before the days of DNA testing, so we can only assume that the man was an ill prepared fool.

The camera shows an old man asleep with his mouth wide open. The focus goes back to Len.

Len: It all started when he was spurned by a woman on his 21st birthday. I know how he felt. Although, with me I was 55 and the woman my 2nd cousin.

Len shakes his head.

Len: I kept telling her, "It's perfectly legal. All you have to do is consent".

Camera shows an old man waking up, looking confused and then falling back to sleep.

Len: Then she started to ask why I'd come round to her house wearing a hairnet and latex gloves. "DNA!" I shouted at her, but molecular biology never was her strong point.

Len begins to get tearful.

Len: I only wanted to make her happy. She deserved it, but she didn't deserve what she got. I know that now; It's time for me to repent.

Len produces a brick from under his seat. He puts it on the accelerator pedal, takes off his seatbelt and pushes the "door open" button. He walks over to the open door.

Len: This is for you, VAAAAAAALLLLLLLLEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEE!

Len leaps out of the moving vehicle. A thud and carhorn is heard. The coach continues on driverless. Fade to black.

Ends

WL, I really like the build up of this and it's very well written, but why not just have Len drive around, more or less confessing to murders/assaults/rapes etc and the old folk not really noticing?

I know what you mean, GT, but I wanted the sketch to have a natural conclusion to it. Len thinks that he's making amends for his previous crime, but he's actually creating even more murders.

This is quite nice and, with a tiny bit of polishing, well worthy of production on TV.

Godot's suggestion is excellent and would make a much higher 'class' of sketch.

Horses for courses. Both ideas have their place.

My only moan is that, once again, you've named a character who doesn't need a name.

Most pro writers would see no need for that and would refer to the driver simply as 'DRIVER'.

It's only a minor niggle.

The sketch is funny.

It's good but I think the fact hat he kills himself softens the humor, and the fact that he kills all the old folks is just confusing

If you look at the caver in League of Gentlemen it's a similar vibe. He just drones on in this monotone, about awful the awful day. A 3 part structure might also help dark ages to famous local serial killer to "he didn't understand DNA not like I do"

Thanks for the comments. Taking them into consideration, I've come up with an alternate ending of:

Len: I only wanted to make her happy. She deserved it, but she didn't deserve what she got. I know that now.

Len wipes away the tears and steadies himself.

Len: Right, now, if you look to your left you'll see the very house that Barry Skinnard was born in. The same Barry Skinnard that brutally murdered his parents in 1987. I know how he felt. I never did see eye to eye with my parents and eventually enough was enough.....

Len's dialogue fades away as the screen fades to black.

Ends

Good stuff sharper, now works well

Quote: sootyj @ February 7, 2008, 11:08 AM

Good stuff sharper, now works well

View original

I have to disagree.

The new ending is (SEARCHES FOR A POLITE WAY TO SAY 'ABSOLUTE SHITE') . . . er, not as funny as the original.

The original ending is FAR superior.

I'm torn between the two endings. I like the insanity of the original ending, but then I do like the subtlety/repeat finish of the second one.

The second one is also a lot easier/cheaper to film if it ever got to that stage.

This reminds me a lot of the cave guide in the League Of Gentlemen.

Having said that, this sketch works because of the captive audience - the reactions of the passengers as Len confesses to his crimes would be very funny. There's no reason to kill him off, it's a waste of a character that could be easily revisited.

.....well he could pull over at a service station and dump a bin liner clad body in a skip, only it's full of bodies already, and he gets honked and caught in headlights.

but it's not the police it's a long queue of other coach drivers with old folks dumping corpses,

and the coach has Charles Manson Family Tours on the side, or Ed Geine's Driving Machine.

One thing once he feels guilt, it stops being comedy and becomes tragedy.

Yes, I suppose it is quite similar to the cave guide sketch from LoG. However, I think the characters and their reflections are different. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

There's a finite number of jokes in the world, we all end up copying other jokes a bit.

This joke is similar but the emotional meter, and focus are different.

n.b. dozy old folks are always funny, could one of them piss themselves?

Funny sketch, I liked it!
Here is another alternative ending I just thought of:
He continues to explain one or two more gruesome murder homes (perhaps they could get more disgusting as they progress), continuing to identify with all of them until he stops the bus and says "All right and that concludes our your tour with myself! But this is also the beginning of your tour with James our celebrity tour driver".
A man walks on the bus holding in both hands (and sniffing in deeply) a picture of a celebrity and what appears to be an article of women's clothing close to his face.

Hi Winterlight

I guess I'm the exception that proves the rule here. I don't really see this as particularly funny either from a point of view of a straight or indeed a dark sketch.

It's more like an excerpt from a longer piece IMO and as such might work in that context.

Seen purely as a sketch there are really no jokes in it and it seems to want to be dark for dark's sake (perhaps that's not quite fair as I liked the hairnet and rubber gloves line)

Also I thought that a lot of the driver's dialogue was exposition and wasn't showing, it just was telling.

I'm probably a bit old school but for me a sketch must have a joke / jokes or an amusing visual or physical payoff.

This has more pathos than humour. I think you pre-empt your sketch by saying you were rising to a challenge and trying to write something dark. I think that this shows here and that your motivation for writing it was flawed.

I enjoy most of your work on critique but just feel that on this occasion, for me anyway, you've not hit the target.

I think that there is a popular misconception in general, once more this is just IMO, that a little bit weird, wacky and uncomfortably dark = artistic integrity and thus good. I don't buy this idea.

This crit reads as a bit of a hatchet job but it's not intended as such(honestly ). I think that you are capable of a lot better than this.

But it's entirely possibly that this type of work is just not my sort of thing and I'm picking on this sketch to make my point. So hey!- What would I know anyhoo? I'm certainly in the minority here with my views so I may well be out of touch or just simply talking bollocks

Any road up, sorry not to be more positive on this one.

B