Today on the Jeremiah Bile Show by Anthony Cawood - Short, Comedy, Dark, Comedy - A young teen takes her deadbeat parents onto a daytime talkshow to stop them using her as a slave, well that was the plan. 8 pages - pdf, format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hey Anthony,

I'm a fan of your work, but not a huge fan of this script. ;) Here's why:

1. One would expect Jim and Meg to have taken more advantage of Beth's ability. I mean, come on, were they so stupid not to realize that this pyrokinetic thing was unique and people would be interested? Parents like this would see a chance to make money here.

2. Normally, the host of a talk show wouldn't be clueless about the stories his guests were going to tell. Also, it takes too long (more than 3 pages) for the guy to figure out what Beth is actually talking about.

3. The ending is predictable. I get the message, but we've seen "special" humans, aliens etc. being turned into guinea pigs a zillion times.

On the plus side, you managed to capture the atmosphere of a tabloid talk show and your writing is good, as usually. But the script needs more than a few fixes, imo.

Manolis

Anthony,

Some comments light a fire.  Others are duds.

This one doesn't ring true for me. On these sorts of shows the guests are well vetted.  They have to be.  Everything is well orchestrated. Beth can surprise everyone but it has to be something not on the original schedule.  And if the parents know of her gift why haven't they exploited her?  Are they so stupid?

The writing is solid.  The setting works.  The story needs a bit of work.

Best
Richard

Manolis/Richard

Many thanks for taking a read, much appreciated.

They don't exploit her because they are very stupid and very lazy, they aren't based on real people but are based the type of people who appear on a particular UK show.

Of course the script is meant to be a paraody, so there's an element of exageration to all of it but I take the point re Jeremiah should be better informed and guests better vetted... will work on that element.

Many thanks both

Anthony

Anthony

“beams at the camera”

JIM
We never, you don’t do nowt. Never
lift a finger.     

- I’m a bit confused since Jim is described as beaming (which I take to be smiling) while telling off Beth at the same time. Are you illustrating the completely disingenuous nature of these people who’ll humiliate themselves just to be on TV? Will play the part of antagonist just to have a role in the pantomime?

Ha, loved the use of the word “puce”

While I enjoyed the conceit of using a crass, exploitative daytime chat show in which to tell the skit, which this essentially is, the actual humour was lacking for me. I enjoyed the grotty descriptions of Jim and Mel, I mean, proles personified or what! And the overzealous, manipulative nature of the tacky presenter was amusing but misleading us to believe Beth was some kind of sordid sex slave for her parents before revealing they were taking advantage of her pyrokinesis was both lame and uninspired in the former and just plain unexpected in the latter. Which I guess isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it was more a WTF moment which you were undoubtedly going for. It just didn’t really work for me on the level you hoped.

The end scene felt rather too set up, a product of the outlandish pyrokinesis revelation. The irony being that Beth is a slave for the state rather than her parents which now seems not so bad in comparison. All a bit too contrived, in my opinion. In the other words, my problems were more got to do with what came before that resulted in the concluding gag than the conclusion itself but I understand that’s the central joke you were going for.

Anyway, one must applaud anyone who’ll take a jab at the ridiculousness of Jeremy Kyle even if it’s a little redundant and obvious.

Col.

Hey Col and thanks for taking a look, appreciated as always.

Jim is meant to be beaming because he's on telly, whilst still being a deadbeat - that was the intention anyway.

This one didn't work for you, guess that's gonna happen sometimes, especially with comedy - or not as the case may well be ;-)

Will have a look t some of the elements you mention though.

Cheers

Anthony

Don't see a story here. Part of one, maybe. Disjointed, seen it before, all parts of it, in other stories. What I don't see is an urban legend.

That's because I didn't enter it in OWC :-)

It's just for the normal Shorts board

Thanks for looking though.

Oops...duh.