My second one, after the Platform Quickie. Went for something a little more extensive that picks up pace as it goes. Thanks for your comments last time. Please tell me what you think.

THEY EAT HORSES DON’T THEY?

GRAMS: STAID CULTURE VULTURE INTRO

DISC JOCKEY: Welcome back to BBC Radio’s BookZone. This week we’re extending
a warm welcome to British Fantasy Award winner James Gallagher,
author of Dragon’s Twilight and the bestselling RuneWar
Chronicles. Thanks for hanging around James, ready for some
questions?
JAMES:[SCOT’S ACCENT] Looking forward to it.
DISC JOCKEY: Well, we have a legion of devoted fans waiting for you. Okay,
Line One: our first question comes from Trollslayer. Hello
Trollslayer – do you have a question for James?
TROLLSLAYER:[GRUFF] Hello James: long time fan, first time caller.
JAMES: Always nice to talk to a fan. What’s your question?
TROLLSLAYER: In The Towers of Ebony Sorrow, when Lord Vasterian is struck
down by the WitchKing’s curse, the elves cure him using
enchanted berries they call ‘Antherika’. My question is, where
did they find the ‘Antherika’ bush?
JAMES: Wow, Trollslayer. ‘Good’ question. Put me on the spot there
with that one: see I wrote ‘Towers’ over twenty years ago now.
TROLLSLAYERoes it grow in the Mires of Mourn? Or perhaps on the Islands
of Glutt.
JAMES: The Islands of Glutt?
TROLLSLAYER: On the inside cover of Dragon’s Twilight there’s a map of the
Doomlands. If you place the bottom left hand corner under a
microscope, you can just make them out.
JAMES: Really? Well, you certainly seem to know your stuff. In all
honesty - I don’t think that I can recall the answer to such a
specific question.
TROLLSLAYER: I must know.
JAMES: It’s entirely possible that I never identified where it came
from. After all, it would be difficult to reference everything
you mention in a thousand page fantasy novel.
TROLLSLAYER: But ‘you’ would know.
JAMES: I’m afraid I don’t Trollslayer. I wish I could help you here,
but it’s not like I’ve ever eaten from the ‘Antherika’ bush
myself.
TROLLSLAYER: You jest, my lord.
JAMES: Excuse me? This is a wind up, right? I eat like everyone else:
like you.
TROLLSLAYER:I’m on the ‘Hobbit Diet’.
JAMES: [LAUGHS] Meaning what - you only eat hobbits?
TROLLSLAYER: You would mock the woodland ways of our trusted allies?
DISC JOCKEY:[LAUGHS] Have to go to a specialist butcher for that, do you?
JAMES: [MOCK]I lost six stone on the ‘Mythical Creatures’ diet plan. A
shake for breakfast and a hobbit for my main meal; yeah, except
I couldn’t bloody find one.
TROLLSLAYER: [SERIOUS] Morrigor, God of Wolves and Wild Places provides -
you just live on what you can find: berries, roots…the odd pony.
JAMES:[LAUGHTER DIES] You ate a pony?
DISC JOCKEYerhaps time to move onto Line Two…
JAMES: You killed and ate a pony?
TROLLSLAYER: It was dead when I found it.
JAMES: Well, I suppose that’s alright then.
TROLLSLAYER: [FX - PAGES FLICKING] In The Warlock’s Gambit, the Black Druid
tells Vasterian, ‘Acolytes of Morrigor must feast on the flesh
of fallen forest animals, for it would be an insult to the God
of Wolves and Wild Places, not to do so.’
JAMES: Are you insane? You probably carved up some little girl’s pride
and joy. Where did you find it?
TROLLSLAYER: I don’t know – in a paddock?
JAMES: You’re a sick man Trollslayer and I think you need some help.
We can do something like that, can’t we?
DISC JOCKEY:Yeah…sure…we can put him in contact with…somebody.
TROLLSLAYER: You mocked the woodland folk and now you mock me.
JAMES: Right now the police and militant members of the RSPCA are
probably searching for the ‘Beast of Burden Ritual Murderer’.
TROLLSLAYER:It’s not murder. I told you, it was dead. It had passed on. It
had ceased to live – do you get it?
JAMES: No, Trollslayer – I don’t get it. You ate a dead horse. My
books are meant to be a form of entertainment. They aren’t the
Bible or the Koran.
TROLLSLAYER: I serve only Morrigor, God of Wolves…
JAMES: …and Wild Places. I know. It’s fiction. They’re not religious
or instructional texts. You wilfully suspend your disbelief:
not do away with it entirely.
DISC JOCKEYkay then, er, thank you Trollslayer. We’ll see if we can get
you some help – with your problem. Let’s move on. Line Two, do
you have a question for James Gallagher?
TROLLSLAYER:Would the dragons know where to find ‘Antherika’?
DISC JOCKEY:Trollslayer? Line Three.
TROLLSLAYER: I know that the elves would never share their secrets. The
dragons have been known…
JAMES: Why are the berries of that stupid bush so important to you?
TROLLSLAYER: They cured Lord Vasterian, right?
JAMES: Right.
TROLLSLAYER: Well, since eating that bloody pony, I’ve spent the last three
days in the lav. I’ve taken the enamel off the bowl and I’m
beginning to think that I might not make it, so for the love of
Morrigor, my lord, please tell me – where may I
find ‘Antherika’?
JAMES: [PAUSE. THEN A SIGH OF RESIGNATION]The Islands of Glutt.
TROLLSLAYER:I knew it.
JAMES: Yeah, that’s not the artist’s signature at all – although it
may look very much like it. That’s an isolated island chain,
where elves in exile cultivate the powerful regenerative magic
of the ‘Antherika’ bush. There, satisfied? [FX - PHONE ABRUPTLY
CUTS OFF.] Well, there you go…
DISC JOCKEY:There he goes – off to find his magic berries. I wonder if
he’ll find them? We have time for just one more question. Line
Four, do you have a question for James Gallagher?
GOTH GIRL:Yeah, hi James. I just wanted to know how you went about
creating such believable fictional worlds in your work?

I think, from a practical point of view, that Trollslayer would have been cut off when they went to the other lines so wouldn't have been able to continue speaking. Also, the 'it had ceased to live' sounds too much like the dead parrot sketch. I think, and please bear in mind that I don't know what I'm talking about, that it was too long for the joke, if that makes sense? That is, there needs to be more jokes or funny lines in it before you get to the pay-off at the end. Or alternatively, make it shorter.

Yes, funnyish but needs to be shorter.

I echo the above. I liked i but it could have done with a trim. Also I'd consider ending it on the best laugh. By switching lines and then adding the goth girl, it fluffed a bit and diluted the final laugh. I'd have (imo) ended it with the revelation that he needed to find the bush to cure his squits.

Sketches should be the SAS of comedy get in and out before the viewer is aware.

Laertes

I think it's too long. The content is good in general and it did make me laugh but I felt there was a little too much discussion going on. For example, at the beginning you can drop 'British Fantasy Award winner' and the 'Thanks for hanging around', 'looking forward to it' lines to make it a bit punchier.

I think where we can hear the pages being turned there is a prime opportunity for a 'last-word-on-the-next-page' misunderstanding joke too, just for an unexpected laugh somewhere in the middle.

I think you could finish on a bigger laugh but if you pinned me down and forced me to think of one... I couldn't.

Thanks

Dan