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The Axe Factor
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
Rattus Rattus explains that Henry VIII left the beheading to trained professionals, which leads into a reality-competition episode following a fresh batch of would-be royal executioners. The recruits give cheery interviews to camera about why they are suited to the work, before a masked head executioner reels off the job's grisly skills and dismisses one pleading applicant on the spot. An eager young man who only wants to stand on his own feet comes off badly in the axe-lifting test, the boss's string of noose puns ends with the joke's writer on the gallows, and the last candidate secures the post with an unanswerable argument: he is the one holding the axe.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 3
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
I don't know. I chopped his head off.
I just want to be independent, you know, stand on my own two feet.
Well, I've got the axe, and you haven't.
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
A parody of the talent show The X Factor. Its episode was first shown on BBC Two on 25 June 2009, having been moved from its usual slot to make way for coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships.
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:04
Speaker 1
Henry VIII really was a terrible Tudor. If he didn't like you, he'd have your head chopped off. He even beheaded two of his wives.
- 00:14
Speaker 2
In this week's issue of Oye Magazine, Henry VIII's latest wedding. We ask, will Catherine Park go the distance? Or are we heading for another beheading? Plus, Henry VIII tells of his heartbreak at the Anne of Cleves divorce.
- 00:27
Speaker 3 ?
I chucked her because she was a minger.
- 00:29
Speaker 2
And Anne Boleyn's manky six-finger reveal. Was it an abnormal extra finger, or was it just a wart?
- 00:35
Speaker 4 ?
It's a wart!
- 00:37
Speaker 2
All the goss, all the pics, on all the latest beheadings, only in this week's Oh Yay!
- 00:46
Speaker 5
Henry just loved chopping off heads. Didn't do it himself, mind. He had trained executioners to do the dirty work. I wonder how you get chosen for that job.
- 01:01
Speaker 1
It's a Monday morning in Tudor England, and a batch of new recruits are about to see who's up to the challenge of landing their dream job chopping people's heads off
- 01:10
Mathew Baynton
be living the dream really well more of a nightmare i suppose
- 01:14
Ben Willbond
my mum reckons i'll be really good at this job got all the right qualities
- 01:18
Speaker 6 ?
and what does your dad think
- 01:20
Ben Willbond
i don't know i chopped his head off
- 01:23
Sarah Hadland
some people say you know this isn't a job for a woman but to be honest you're wearing a mask so who's gonna know
- 01:29
Speaker 7
it's not just about chopping people's heads off there's all sorts of skills required in the job there's hanging people dropping people in boiling oil chopping the limbs off and then of course you got the slitting people open watching the stomachs fall out right you're out
- 01:52
Sarah Hadland ?
oh please sir I've got so much more to give
- 01:56
Speaker 7
I didn't even mention pulling people's lungs out boy watch me shoes famous
- 02:01
Speaker 1
the remaining recruits are set to their first task which is to lift the axe.
- 02:08
Speaker 7
So what makes you think you can do this job, Sonny?
- 02:12
Mathew Baynton
I like the uniform and I just want to be independent, you know, stand on my own two feet.
- 02:21
Mathew Baynton ?
One foot.
- 02:24
Speaker 7
Next! Right, listen very carefully. The type of noose used in a public execution varies according to the time of day the execution is to to be carried out. This is the 7 o'clock noose. This is the 9 o'clock noose. And this is the noose at 10. And this is the person that wrote that joke. Now, what makes you think you should be given the job?
- 03:00
Ben Willbond
Well, I've got the axe, and you haven't.
- 03:03
Speaker 7
Good point. Welcome to the tower.
- 03:05
His story.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from Horrible Histories.
