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Writers’ Room: Fire Drill

Mitchell and Webb Are Not HelpingNot Helping
SKETCH-O-VISION
A VERY GOOD USE OF YOUR TIME.

The setup

A writer newly appointed as fire officer stages a theatrical evacuation drill, then finds nobody will leave when she starts a real fire.

Community rating

– / 10

The premise

Here’s the bit.

In the sketch show's writers' room, Lara arrives in a helmet and hi-vis vest to announce that she is now the fire officer and that alarms will be taken seriously from now on. Her colleagues, busy developing a crude premise about a pianist sent into space, scoff that the alarm never means anything. When Krystal reveals she once barely escaped a real fire, Lara seizes on it and performs a melodramatic evacuation speech that nobody acts on. Later the alarm sounds again and Lara insists the danger is genuine, then admits she lit a small fire in a broom cupboard to make her point and lost control of it. The writers stay seated, refusing to be fooled, and keep polishing their joke.

The funny people

Meet the cast. 6

Say it with us

Highly quotable.

Because one day, there's going to be a real fire, fingers crossed.

Did you consider that maybe it's a real fire that wants you to think it's a drill?

Behind the scenes

The people who made it.

A little extra

Notes from the archive.

Broadcast in two parts in Episode Four, separated by other sketches; the official Big Talk Studios upload joins both parts.

ScriptEnglish · 22 turns

Automatically generated script; wording may contain errors. Speaker labels are inferred.

  1. 00:00

    Krystal Evans ?

    Ooh, what if NASA sent a pianist to Uranus?

  2. 00:05

    Yes, this is all excellent.

  3. 00:08

    Lara Ricote

    Okay, Bozo, shut the fuck up! Sorry, sorry for swearing just now. As you can see, I've been appointed the new fire officer. So from now on, we take the fire alarms seriously. When it sounds, we all have to evacuate in an orderly fashion. Because one day, there's going to be a real fire, fingers crossed. And then you'll all know what to do. And you'll say, thank you, Lara. But, uh, thank you because I am not burning.

  4. 00:31

    Okay, I think I know what this is about. It's because we ignored that fire alarm last week.

  5. 00:36

    Lara Ricote

    Yeah, too right it is. Yeah. And that's not going to happen again. Not on my watch. So when the fire alarm goes off, and I'm not saying that I know when, but when it goes off, we all have to leave the room, okay? This is not necessarily a drill.

  6. 00:50

    It'll obviously be a drill.

  7. 00:51

    Lara Ricote

    Did you consider that maybe it's a real fire that wants you to think it's a drill?

  8. 00:53

    It's never a real fire.

  9. 00:55

    Kiell Smith-Bynoe ?

    Okay, so I just don't see why the pianist has to go to Uranus. It's like it still has to make sense. Like, maybe he's lost his fanny pack?

  10. 01:02

    Krystal Evans ?

    Sorry, sometimes it's a real fire.

  11. 01:05

    What?

  12. 01:05

    Krystal Evans

    I actually have been through a fire.

  13. 01:07

    Oh, god, Crystal, really? Was it bad?

  14. 01:09

    Krystal Evans

    Yeah, it was really bad. You know, I barely escaped, and I got burned, and it was...

  15. 01:14

    Lara Ricote

    That's right, Crystal! That's right, sometimes it's a real fire! Okay! All right, the drill will start momentarily. Okay, or is it a drill? That's the thing with fires, you never really know, right, Crystal? Tell him. There's a fire in the building! Everybody get out now! This is not a drill. I promise. This is not a drill. It could be in the kitchen. It could be in the toilet. It could be a flame bomb dropping from the sky. This could be Armageddon! So please leave the building in an orderly fashion. Thank you.

  16. 01:51

    Crystal?

  17. 01:54

    Krystal Evans ?

    No, I changed my mind. You know what could be really funny? If the pianist had a name that sounded like another rude word. So, like, Cockmeister.

  18. 02:04

    So, Cockmeister is on a journey to find his lost cock. A cock journey. I like it.

  19. 02:11

    Lara Ricote

    There's a fire in the building! Everybody get out now! This is not... OK, I admit that you guys have no reason to trust me, but I'm being serious. There's a real fire this time. We gotta go.

  20. 02:24

    You won't win, Lara. You're not gonna make us believe in the fire.

  21. 02:26

    Lara Ricote

    I was just trying to start a little tiny fire in the broom cupboard just to try to prove my point just a little bit But got a hand really quickly and now it's fired. I'm being serious

  22. 02:35

    Tell you what what if the cock Meister gets sucked into the black hole? That's good. It's the one getting this down Yeah, could the black hole be sucking him off? Hmm suck the cock. You've talked all the way off. You can event my horizon So the cock is sucked Yeah, but by physics. Yes, off, all the way off. Not to the point of ejaculation, OK? Yeah, so astronaut Kochmeister is going to Uranus to find his fanny pack. This is gold. Yes. Why is he Kochmeister? Is he German? Meister? What is that? This is so fucked up.

The rabbit hole continues

One more couldn’t hurt.

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