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Digging a Grave With Your Phone On
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.
The setup
Watch on YouTube
Watch onYouTube
The premise
Here’s the bit.
In a moonlit wood, a gangster orders a hesitant accomplice to bury a bound man called Spanners alive. When the digger protests that murder is a step too far, the gangster insists that his smartphone and palm-oil shower gel already make him complicit in far worse, and the doomed victim cheerfully joins in to back the argument. Offers to give up both are waved away as impossible for anyone who wants to function in society, the would-be objector is branded a hypocrite, and his phone finally gives away what he was really doing with it.
The funny people
Meet the cast. 3
Say it with us
Highly quotable.
You can't make moral distinctions and have a phone.
I bet they had nephews as well.
You should really have that on silent for this kind of work.
A little extra
Notes from the archive.
The official Mitchell and Webb YouTube upload of this sketch is titled "Phones", while British Comedy Guide lists it as "Digging a grave with your phone on" in the Episode 2 running order and hosts the clip as "Getting cold feet whilst burying a man alive".
Script
Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.
- 00:04
Gangster
Shut up spanners. You know what you did.
- 00:07
Yeah, you you show face, please
- 00:12
Hitman ?
You do well like kids family or like cousins.
- 00:16
Spanners ?
Oh, yeah.
- 00:16
Gangster ?
No talking to him. We get this done. We get out
- 00:20
Spanners ?
nephews
- 00:21
Hitman
All right. Don't know Frank. This all seems a lot Killing someone seems like too much if I kill him I would have killed someone, you know
- 00:33
Gangster
You use a mobile phone, don't you?
- 00:34
Hitman
Yeah.
- 00:35
Gangster
Well, then you can't suddenly be all oh, I don't want to murder this man, and then be browsing on your phone. Google where the precious metals for your precious phone come from. Google it.
- 00:43
Hitman
What, using my phone?
- 00:46
Gangster
It's child soldiers in Africa, OK? Everyone knows that. So you can't not kill this man, but then use a phone.
- 00:52
Hitman
Is that the same?
- 00:53
Gangster
Yes, it's exactly the same. You can't make moral distinctions and have a phone.
- 00:58
Spanners
Or use shower gel.
- 01:00
Hitman ?
What?
- 01:00
Spanners
Because of the palm oil.
- 01:01
Gangster
Because of the palm oil. Oh, you had a lovely lather with your mango madness this morning. in well congratulations you just killed nine orangutans
- 01:08
Spanners
yeah i bet they had nephews as well
- 01:11
Hitman
all right well i won't use shower gel or my phone
- 01:14
Gangster
yeah then you won't be able to hold a job down we'll participate in society
- 01:19
Gangster ?
and i'm thinking if i leave this job then we'll kill you
- 01:23
Hitman ?
yeah you'll kill me here
- 01:24
Spanners
you have to have a mobile phone even in the non-organized crime world your quality of life would be severely impacted
- 01:31
Gangster
yeah so you're going to get off your high horse and bury this man alive or what the fact that you would even consider not burying this man alive makes you the worst one here
- 01:45
Hitman ?
does it
- 01:46
Gangster
yeah because you're a hypocrite
- 01:47
Spanners ?
you just can't live without your instagram can you
- 01:50
Hitman ?
shut up just shut up
- 01:53
Hitman
it's facebook marketplace looking for some new cushions
- 02:04
Spanners ?
You should really have that on silent for this kind of work.
The rabbit hole continues
One more couldn’t hurt.
More from Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping.
