Category: Blogs that are actually me pretending to be a Reviewer

Brevity is the soul of wit

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We’ve been going to an amazing sketch-writing course on weekends. It involves watching classic sketches from Smack the Pony and Monty Python, laughing a lot, and then analysing why.

So it’s basically heaven. Oh and then we have to improvise on the spot in front of the whole class. Not so heavenly.

Wanted to share a few things from it, as – inevitably – there were many moments which crossed over into advertising. 

So this week, class, we’ll look at how the “craft” of sketch writing overlaps into crafting good ads. (forgive the use of the word ‘craft’, it is pretentious but necessary).

The classic sketch structure consists of:

The setup. The twist. Escalation. Pay-off.

The interesting bit is escalation. There are many different ways in which a comic can escalate the joke in a sketch…

Repetition – think of Lauren in Catherine Tate who is relentlessly ‘bovvered’. Or Cleese and his million ways to describe how the parrot is in fact dead.

Revelation – where a new layer of unexpectedness  is revealed. Or something new about the character which adds to the humour. e.g. the Constable Savage sketch in Not the 9 o’ clock News. In this, the constable is being disciplined for a bunch of absurd arrests. Then we find out that it’s the same man he’s been arresting. Then we find out why – because he’s black. and then we find out the script actually has a strong political polemic. Worth watching if you’ve not seen it (can’t find it on youtube though)

Variation – a new version of the same twist. For example, in this god-like Fry & Laurie sketch, a man insists his surname IS the sound of a lighter being dropped onto a counter. the variation on this joke comes when he insists his address IS a tap dancing sequence.

I was struck by how similar this is to writing an ad campaign. The joke is the central thought, or strategy. And the variations are simply different executions of the same thought – just as three posters in an ad campaign are basically escalating the same concept in different ways.

Our homework this week was to write a 3 minute sketch. I’m writing about call-centre ineptitude. Nat’s writing about delusional estate agents. Should be lots of fun. Any fun horror stories on either, please feel free to share – we may use it as script fodder – thanks.

 

 

More Fringe Highlights (and Missing Highlighters)

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Earlier readers of this blog may recall the confessions of our lever-arched kleptomania. So when Matt Harvey (the stand up poet) read out his amazing poem Works Perks I couldn’t believe how bang on the nail it was. It’s all about the dangers of getting a little carried away when you’re in the stationery cupboard…

But his poem’s not just about pens and pritt sticks. Something bigger underpins it which is a little haunting… for those days when you wonder if your life is drifting away in the monotony of office life, which Joshua Ferris also explores in ‘Then we came to the end’. I just love the bit ‘I take these reams… you take my dreams’. ‘ You take the best part of my month. I take this hole punch.’ Brilliant. It’s a bit like the literary equivalent of Martha Tilston’s Artificial.
 
It’s not printed in his brilliant book ‘The Hole in the Sum of my Parts’, but happily he sent it to me, so I’m reproducing it at the end of this blog.

Other Edinburgh highlights were the dance group Circa at the Assembly Rooms. I never really get that excited by Circus shows, but this is really contemporary dance blended with circus skills with a very sensual, poetic feel that leaves you uplifted but melancholy at the same time. Truly the most captivating dance show I’ve ever seen, and the standing ovation suggested everyone in the room felt the same. Circa are from Australia but if they’re ever in the UK again I can’t stress enough how you have to go and see them.

Also I have to mention the unendingly surreal Mr Paul Foot. There is no other comedian on the circuit like him – he’s mad, surprising (in a spontaneously dry-humping a giant teddy bear kind of way), and he thrives on audience awkwardness. Among his many shows in Edinburgh this year was his meanderingly hilarious Bed Time Story, which took place at 2pm in the Pink Bus – an eclectic double decker stuffed with art and nostalgia (above). He’s definitely an acquired taste, and as such Paul Foot doesn’t have fans, he has connoisseurs. Check him out here.

And now back to a less bonkers type of comedy, with a subtle (and I wonder if intentional) tribute to adland in the last line.

‘Works perks’… by Matt Harvey
 
…it’s just a little thing,
I wouldn’t call it pilfering
Or petty theft. I took one, yes
But look – there are so many left.
I’m in on time. I smile, work hard.
Why should my conscience twitch or flinch?
Each working week you take a yard,
So why begrudge me my half-inch?
 
You take the best hours of my day
What do you give me? Take-home pay.
I’m so tired I can hardly speak
You take the best days of my week.
You take the best weeks of my month
I take some paper, this hole-punch.
You take the best months of my year
I take this swivel-chair. Oh dear.
You take the best years of my life…
… a laminator for the wife
 
So now please look the other way –
I need my little takeaway
To give myself a token raise
To supplement my take-home praise
 
Some get to meet celebrities
Or go on junkets overseas
I’m simply taking some of these –
Some paper clips, some folder files
A pritt stick, stapler, carpet tiles
Some tippex, a waste-paper bin
This thing for putting thingies in
This ream. Okay this box of reams
This laptop…
…well, you take my dreams
 
How did ever come to this?
My perky chirpy perquisites
Have been turned into exhibits –
These trinkets I gave house-room to:
Exhibits ‘A’ to ‘W’
Don’t ask what reason or what rhyme
Drove pretty me to petty crime
Nobody’s perfect
I guess it built up over time
Because I’m worth it
 

‘I think we’re in a play’ – Fringe Highlights part one

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I (lol) had a very appreciated day off last Friday. And in a naïve attempt to get away from advertising for a few days, I joined some friends on a jaunt to Edinburgh for a little artistic nourishment.
 
How wrong I was. There is no such thing as escaping advertising. First off, I was travelling only a carriage down from the whole BBH creative department on their summer jolly. So I got a quick update on Bill’s postcard collection which has taken a turn for the vintage. I managed to resist joining them in their 11 A.M. boozing. And I caught up on the news since we left black sheep towers in March.

Then later we crossed paths at the brilliant Idiots of Ants. A sketch group formed by some guys we went to university with, they’ve just been shortlisted for the Comedy Awards, rightly so. They had some really clever material. The opening sketch was a plaful dabble in post-modernism, where Nazi soldiers suddenly realise they are actors. ‘I think we’re in a play. I think these are just costumes!’ Again, I couldn’t get away from advertising even then – I kept thinking how much it reminded me of the recent ‘mini – I think we’re in a viral’ viral.

As ever, an essential part of one’s edinburgh experience involves tempering your outbreaks of FOMO (fear of missing out), as you walk round and see that all the things you weren’t OCD enough to book back in January 2007 are now sold out. The Faulty Towers Dining Experience being one of them. Just round the corner from the Pleasance courtyard, it’s a restaurant where they hire actors to perform as Basil, Manuel and Polly while you eat. From the little show we caught through the window, it looked amazing. Complete with sound effects of smashing glass and Manuel being hurt in the back room.

The flip-side of not being too anal about booking stuff up is that you find yourself with spare time for spontaneous hidden treasures. One such gem was Matt Harvey and his stand-up poetry show ‘Wondermentalist’ on the Sunday afternoon. From the moment he started, this understated master of wordsmithery had me in uncontrollable hysterics. He’s not just mind-blowingly insightful and lyrical, his delivery is hilarious too. Check him out at Mattharvey.co.uk
 
Then came his his anecdote about being paid copywriter rates to write Ode to a Spud. As it turns out he was recently hired by Archibald Ingall Stretton… to write a poem for their Love Food Hate Waste campaign. There really is no escaping ‘adland’! But then I guess you never do when you’re a creative. And that’s the fun of it. Being inspired by all sorts of stuff you see, making a note of it and then forgetting all about it. 

Anyway, have run out of time and space, so more on Matt Harvey and other highlights in a second blog.