The jokes that don't make it
Like a lot of writers, around twice a year, I amp myself up to write for the BBC’s only open-entry show for comedy writers, Newsjack on BBC Radio 4.
I’ve had varying levels of success in getting things on. I think I average roughly one one-liner per series which is nice enough. A couple of years ago I had two on which was ideal, but rarely enough to make them take notice.
This week, on week one I got a sketch on, which I was very very pleased with. So pleased that I decided to follow up with some belting jokes and sketches for week 2, of which none were broadcast. Radio 4, you build ‘em up to knock ‘em down don’t you.
The process
For anybody interested, you enter up to 6 jokes and 2 sketches per episode. They have to be about the news and the deadline is Monday, but the show is broadcast on the Thursday so you’re best off using very recent stories. You should also, in my experience, avoid the really big story of the day: COVID, Trump etc.
Newsjack always claim that they want sports sketches. Honestly, I don’t mean to be a dick here, but I don’t think the producers are largely qualified to know what a good sports sketch would look like. Certainly I’ve given up on adding them to my one-liners.
One-liners are divided into ‘Breaking News’, basically fake headliners, and Good Week/Bad Week and you can enter up to three of each.
Here are the ones I wrote this week that didn’t make it:
BREAKING NEWS:
1. Hasbro has announced that Mr Potato Head will now be the gender neutral Potato Head. But don’t worry parents, gender’s a social construct so your child will still be able to slot in Potato Head’s little plastic penis.
2. A British group are building a Museum of Communist Terror, mainly waxworks of dads who’ve just met their daughters’ new boyfriend who is both white and has dreadlocks.
3. Prince Harry has endorsed Netflix’s The Crown. He said, “Although it is fiction is does reflect the truth. In both drama and real life everybody fancies Gillian Anderson”.
GOOD WEEK/BAD WEEK:
1. A good week for the Police who got £70,000 in fines from revellers in Mayfair. A bad week for revellers who’d just rolled double ones after being caught partying in Park Lane.
2. A good week for Ray Quinn, the Poldark Actor who said he’s proud that he left his ego at the door to work for Hermes.
A bad week for the person who’d ordered his ego because it had actually been left halfway down the road in a hedge.
3. A bad week Lady Gaga after her dogs who were stolen at gunpoint.
A good week for fans of fashion and John Wicks as the two come together in a dazzling combo, featuring a new meat dress made of human flesh.
To my mind, one of those six is a good joke, but you’ll have to guess which.
Sketches
And here are the two sketches I entered. These, honestly, I didn’t like. But I have tried to copy the Newsjack tone in my writing, I think maybe too closely after being successful with it last week. Anyway, for posterity, here they are anyway.
ANGELA The Conservative party are planning to help young people! Are they going to close the generational wealth gap? Well, no, but are they going to think about the ever present threat of climate change, or that the young have lost their jobs, along with everything worth living for along with their future? Well, still no. But what are doing is a small rollover in stamp duty for several months. This didn’t work the first time they did it, or the second time or the third time but if the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results then why not give it another go it’s been a weird bloody year. Still, it would be interesting to see what situation they wouldn’t do any of this.
FX: SHRIEKS, SCREAMS, ALIEN LASER GUNS
Crowd member: Help, invasion. They’re coming. Oh God they have claws and tentacles and laser guns and good God that’s some awful body odour. Flee, flee from your homes. Flee for your lives.
GRAMS: SUPERHERO MUSIC
WonderMan: Fear not, mortal I will save you with my laser eye
SuperGirl: And I will defeat them with my Sword of Truth. How about you SuperRishi?
RISHI Are any of you first time buyers?
CROWD: What?
RISHI Well for three more months, I will be cutting stamp duty for first time buyers which will help stimulate the market short term and provide liquidity for …
FX: Zaps and explosions
Supergirl That was close! If it wasn’t for my Sword of Truth we’d be toast, Rishi my senses are tingling, I can feel another evil approaching. You’d better having something useful for them.
RISHI Oh I do…
SFX Screams
Wonderman Looks like the evil Exceltior the Sea God has created an enormous tidle wave. Quick Supergirl fly above it whilst I freeze the advancing tides. And Rishi?
RISHI Are any of these coastal towners looking to move soon and potentially save thousands of pounds by completing in the next quarter, because what I can do is ensure that they don’t have to pay stamp duty.
Wonderman Useless, bloddy hell. Can’t you do anything to help out
RISHI Well there was that time last summer when I got everybody to eat together in restaurants
SUPERGIRL You mean when you directly caused a killer disease to run rumpant through the population
RISHI Exactly, so I mean, I could try that again.
SUPERGIRL I’m sorry how did he get to be in group?
WONDERMAN I mean, he was all over the news in a graphic that made him look like Superman. And just looks so smart and competent, I thought he had to have something up his sleeve… we all did
SFX SCREAMS
WONDERMAN (exhasperated) Fine, Stamp duty it is then, but you’d better not take any credit for all of this when we’re done.
SFX Cameras flashing
REPORTER So Rishi, can we call you that or is it Super Rishi, dare we say it, future Prime Minister Super Rishi
RISHI Dishy will be fine by me. And for my next trick, do you guys like restaurants?
END
Song Court
ANGELA A leading judge has said that Drill lyrics are being misunderstood which is leading to unfair convictions. We should separate the art from the artist sure, but on the other hand, whoever wrote the lyrics “It's Moscow B We're the Russians B I’ll pull up bang and he skeet G, G, Gyal she on me” deserves jail for crimes against the language. Still if we do take drill lyrics seriously I’d hate to think of how a court would treat any other artist…
Drill Lawyer
FX: MUTTERING. JUDGE BANGS GAVEL
JUDGE: Silence. Silence in court. We’re here to hear the case of HMG versus The Police
HMG: (South London accent) Fuck the police!
JUDGE: Let the prosecution take the stand
HMG: Now, I understand man claims to not have stalked the victim, and yet, man’s hit song “Every Breath You Take” man states verbatim, “Every breath you take, Every move you make. Every bond you break. Every step you take. I’ll be watching you.”
STING: OK but, when I wrote that, it was just a piece of art. I didn’t actually mean…
HMG: Hear that jury. Man wrote that but he claims he didn’t mean that.
FX Laughter from the gallery
Sting: No, it was purely metaphorical… like, when I sung I was an Englishman in New York, and before that I wrote, I’m alien, I’m a legal alien I didn’t mean that I actually…
HMG Ohhh so man’s an alien as well now is it? You say you’re legal but we’ll get the home office on that.
Sting No you don’t understand, it’s merely a figure of speech
HMG Let me tell man something. When man writes in his tune “My team be the killers, your team be jokes” it means that we really are killers. I rest my case judge.
FX: JUDGE BANGS GAVEL
Judge: And now for our next case, HMG versus Johnny Cash
HMG: Another easy case. Now, I understand man claims not to be some killer. And yet, in man’s hit song Fulsome Prison, man states verbatim “I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.”
Johnny Cash Permission to plead insanity Judge, I hurt myself today
HMG To see what you could feel. Don’t try that with me.
J CASH: You need to understand that when I wrote “I shot a man” I was merely embodying the mood that person who is contained within fulsome prison, a character, if you will, that my audience can resonate with, I am telling stories however, beautiful or bleak, like a Tarantino film
HMG OK number one. I have seen every one of Tarantino’s documentaries and they speak to me on a deep level. Number two, you are guilty fam.
Judge (bangs gavel) Guilty. A stretch in Fulsome prison will do you good. Now hang your head and cry. Next up, a man who has built and maintained a zoo, but not with normal animals, no, with dinosaurs. Now the ethic and legal implications of this case are simply scandalous. Not least the public health concerns.
Spielberg But it was just a movie!
HMG Tell that to Dr Malcolm and the baby raptors you exploited.
END
Anyway, if you’re writing, hope this kind of digital notebook dumping ground is useful. And if not, well, simply junk mail this bad boy.
Thanks friends,
Jacob