Quote: skram @ 1st November 2020, 3:58 PMThought I would stick up one of my sketches from the final episode - never had a sketch on NJ so any comments/feedback welcome:
I like this sketch. I have a few comments/wonderings - hopefully of some use.
I think the premise is good and clear - Sturgeon literally trying to go one better than Johnson.
The format could be stronger, I think. They get lots of two-hander 'straight interviewer vs crazy interviewee' format sketches so if you can go somewhere else with the format, you'll have a better chance.
In this case, even within the Marr interview format, you could maybe bring in Boris Johnson as a third sketch character. That way, you could have Sturgeon doing the 'adding one' thing in response to whatever Johnson says, interrupting him every time he mentions a number, him then desperately trying to avoid mentioning any numbers, etc. Maybe then Sturgeon could move on to doing the same thing with Marr when he challenges her. Which in turn would help move it along to the end as she's getting dragged out.
As it stands, the escalation phase of your sketch is probably a bit too long. There are some really good 'adding one jokes' in there (really like 'killing three birds with two stones') but after a while, there are diminishing returns, so a few lines could be cut here which would help with the overall flow of the sketch.
I think the intro might need a bit of work. I think it could do with a stronger joke. I always struggle a bit with the Kiri intros to my sketches because it's nearly always the last thing I do and by then it's all a bit of a rush, but ideally Id like an intro joke to be as good as a stand-alone oneliner joke. Also, this might just be me, but I didn't get the impression that Sturgeon was particularly ridiculed for the five tier system, not any more than Johnson was for the three tier system anyway? It was enough to just slightly jar with me as I read it, and made me wonder whether the intro should just be that as Johnson introduced a 3-tier system for England, Nicola Sturgeon's always having to go one (and in this case, two) better with a five tier system.
Endings are typically the hardest part of the sketch, I haven't got anything better than Sturgeon having to be escorted out as she screams higher numbers - seems a perfectly reasonable way of getting to the end!
Nice work - well done!