There are
some topics which should be made illegal as material for sketches.
TV SENDUPS Nothing reveals a lack of
imagination and courage more than TV comedians relying on their own medium to
get easy laughs. I’ll rephrase that: the writing’s easy, the laughs come damn
hard. With all the topics in the universe out there for writers to look to to
create hilarity, turning to the nearest thing at hand is just lazy.
I was
looking forward to the recent series of Anna and Katy. Talented performers, but I’m sorry to say they
gave me a headache. Nearly every sketch was a games show, TV chef, panel show or
soap opera spoof…..and a take-off of “The Apprentice”. In every office across
the country, people do send-ups of Lord Sugar’s hapless contestants. Do we need
yet another on TV?
COSTUME
DRAMA SPOOFS Yes, we know that Jane Austen characters
talk in a slightly stilted way and are absolutely hilarious when they fiddle
with their parasols and call all the men “Mr”. That’s the trouble: we know. We want sketches
to surprise us.
PEOPLE
DRESSED UP AS ANIMALS Often, about half way through the series,
when the ideas are beginning to flag, someone in the team says “Wouldn’t it be
funny if we dressed up as poodles?” People are interesting. Dogs are boring.
People dressed up as dogs are desperate.
Writing
comedy can be tough. A sketch which
seemed brilliant and fresh when you wrote it at midnight can look stale and
clichéd at 10.30am. The stress and adrenalin involved in being funny can cloud
your judgement of your work. Ernest
Hemingway spoke of his inner bullshit detector. Developing one of these is nearly
as important as building your self-belief.