Research: Little Britain

Little Britain is a very popular and current show containing sketches that mainly follow particular characters invented by the actors and their adventures in Britain. The show is known to include celebrity guest appearances and has given birth to some of the countries most memorable characters including: Vicky Pollard, Daffyd, Ray McCooney and Lou & Andy.

The main stars are Matt Lucas and David Walliams as they adopt different personas and bring their crazy and humorous characters to life, their most famous creation arguably being Lou & Andy. Andy is supposedly wheelchair bound yet every time Lou leaves his side, he gets up and walks around, returning to his wheelchair before Lou realises:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWxKE91VCkA

There are many character comedians that create and perform their characters. This allows them to adopt different personas and perform different tasks as someone else with maybe a new voice, different appearance in terms of costume and make-up and even different religions and beliefs. Some character comedians do not go this far and simply give themselves a new name whilst drastically changing something about themselves like their intelligence levels for example, as oppose to their costume or appearance. An example of this is Ed Eales-White who created a character called Lee Guinness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsoLMZoN2qA

Research: The Sketch Show

A group of comedians and comedy actors being Lee Mack, Tim Vine, Jim Tavare, Karen Taylor and Ronni Ancona came together and created a sketch show simply titled 'The Sketch Show'

It can be said that their sketches were exaggerated situations experienced in the lives of the actors themselves as the sketches contained the performers using their real names:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSBOMvj3t_8

Heavy exaggeration and sheer ridiculousness are used to create humour as within the 'Phobia's Workshop' sketch, it is clear that research has been carried out as to what an existing phobia workshop consists of, then the actors have exaggerated certain elements, in this case being the phobias themselves:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koNwUeG-iKE

Research: Omid Djalili Show

Omid Djalili, like Frankie Boyle, aired a series of shows containing a mixture of his stand-up and comedy sketches. Coming from an Iranian background, he uses his nationality to his advantage to achieve comedy. This can be seen in many of his sketches and even his stand-up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRRHhzaUs5U

Using your nationality or religion can be a clever mechanism for achieving humour. Another technique Omid Djalili uses is taking common scenarios, such as driving tests that a vast majority of the population can relate to, and turning these scenarios into comedy by slight exaggeration. This is evident in the 'Road Rage' sketch: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8Q4KpTJ1Cs

Research: Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights

Frankie Boyle is a well known Scottish comedian most famous for his explicit sense of humour. In 2010, he put that to good use by creating a series of six episodes titled 'Frankie Boyle's Tramadol Nights' in which he merges his wicked sense of humour in the forms of live stand-up and sketches that he wrote himself.

His style of comedy can be seen running throughout his sketches as some are intended to shock and offend and contain controversial themes. He uses the current news stories for generating material in his stand-up between sketches. He also uses classic Television programmes and creates spoofs based on them such as the outrageous Thomas the Tank Engine sketch titled 'Viva Traskor' and 'Knightrider' sketches:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gViHCSApQu0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x9tFyEu6VI

Inspiration for... A-Team Sketch

The A-team was an incredibly popular and famous TV series and still lives long in the memory of many of the general population. Many remakes and current films have been made. The idea to create my own spoof came about after watching the newest film which was released in 2010 and starred Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Sharlto Copley and Quinton Jackson as the lead roles.

By using, but changing many of the themes and occurrences from the original series, such as the  famous opening title sequence and theme tune, I was able to create humour whilst letting the audience know that this is a spoof of the A-team as many will recognise the music.

My story was improvised and added to and changed on a daily basis. Once the opening title sequence finished, the sketch would begin with the team around a table playing an intense game of snap. After losing yet another hand, Mr. T would then give up and read the paper. He then stumbles across an article on a local cat that is stuck in a tree and needs help. After agreeing that this seems like a job for the A-team, the group come up with a plan to save the cat and agree that the best solution would be to shake the tree from side to side until the cat fell out. After realising that the van is in for it's MOT, the team are forced to walk to their destination however, they get lost on the way. After eventually turning up, they discover that the cat was saved a long time ago so they decide to play some FIFA in order to celebrate another job well done!

Comedy would come from the ridiculous costumes and the sheer unorganised state that the team are in. Having improvised much of the story to begin with, during filming I was open to any suggestions that the cast came up with and during the editing process, selected the shots that I was most happy with.

My cast were as follows:

Hannibal: Darrel Draper
Face: Riccardo Lettieri
B.A Baracus: Damien Feeney
Murdock: Loucas Mappoura

Inspiration for... Rico's Workout Sketch

Inspiration and ideas can come from the most unusual places, like in a dream, watching a movie or you could even come up with ideas whilst on the toilet! The inspiration for this sketch came from a random source and almost completely by accident. It actually came from the THE3200 Contemporary Television Drama module whilst messing around with some shots we had taken for our final project.

Being on the editing team for the TV project, I decided to create an outtakes video including all of the discarded shots that contained errors, forgotten lines and general messing around. One sequence in our film was several shots of the main character, played by Aaron Lampard, exercising rigorously. After collecting these shots, I decided to merge them together with some dialogue that I quite literally made up on the spot and created an exercise video. The result was Aaron's workout, a DVD containing a workout routine that was guaranteed to loose you at least two dress sizes!

After showing the video and receiving a positive reaction from the TV group, I decided to change the dialogue around slightly, re-film the exercise routines with me in the place of Aaron and make the overall workout more pathetic for comical effect. The result was Rico's Workout! An idea that occurred from complete tom foolery and was almost improvised on the spot!  

Inspiration for... Blow-Up Date Sketch

The inspiration behind this sketch came about after a bad date! After arranging to meet this girl I had met from a dating website, I had probably one of the worst dinners of my life! She was incredibly immature and seemed uninterested in anything I said, constantly checking her phone at the dinner table and playing with her hair and to top it all off, I had to pay for the meal!!!

After pondering on how the date could have gone any worse, I thought to myself how funny it would be if she looked nothing like her profile picture at all and how many men have been tricked into dates who have used different or incredibly misleading profile pictures on the dating websites!

I then went a step further and thought how funny it would be if it wasn't a woman at all, but an inanimate object and that is when I thought what the date would have been like if she turned out to be an inflatable sex toy!

After writing these random collection of thoughts down, I wrote a script and included different scenarios that could occur on our date and what the aftermath may be and that is when the idea to film a sketch about it came from.

I would meet this girl on a dating website and call my best friend up to boast about having a date. He would then give me advice on what to wear and what to make her for dinner. It is only after the date arrives that the audience realise that she is in actual fact an inflatable female sex doll. After dinner which consists of beans on toast, we sleep together and it is only in the morning that I end up regretting it. A few days later and I turn up at my best friends house unexpectedly to have a few drinks and a catch up only as I walk in, to my horror I find my best friend in bed with the very doll that I had dated a few nights ago. In my state of rage, I find a knife and pop her.

To be honest, this date sounds a lot better than the one that I had! And the moral of the sketch is to never trust a date you meet on the internet!!!