"Waiter, there's a fly in my soup"

"Don't say it too loudly, everyone else will want one"

This classic joke caught my eye the other day and I realised it's actually a sketch.

The opening line sets up location (restaurant), cast (diner & waiter) and a point of friction (bad soup.)

Then the joke of the next line hinges on confounding your expectations of how a waiter should behave, i.e. "I'm sorry sir, we'll get you another one and how about a complimentary drink?"

It's a sketch.

It a condensed Dead Parrot. Or a Dead Parrot sketch is a prog rock Waiter joke.

Made me wonder if it could work as a writing exercise - think of your own response and you've written a small sketch. And it's a less daunting exercise than some as it's just a single line, all of the structure is in place for you, you just need to supply something funny(ish).

However the only thing that came to my mind was "I'm dreadfully sorry sir, the chef is a cunt"

Then I remembered some standard writing advice: "don't try and be funny, just think about how you'd behave and see if there's anything absurd in it."

And I wouldn't complain about a fly in my soup.

*Man sitting in restaurant with bowl of soup in front of him, resolutely not eating soup because there's a fly in it*

Waiter: Is everything ok sir?
Man: Yes. It's fine.
Waiter: You haven't touched your soup, is...
Man: It's fine.
Waiter: I could get you something el...
Man: Please. It's FINE.
Waiter: It's no troub...
Man: PLEASE. EVERYTHING IS FINE. I'M JUST NOT HUNGRY.
Waiter: Ok sir, if you're sure

*Man never visits restaurant again and has minor panic attack if he even walks past it and moves to a different country*

Now, I'm not claiming this is particularly funny, but it's what's in my head from this joke starting point.

And also the sense that this was possibly the starting point of a couple of Fry & Laurie sketches.

"Let's write a variation on the waiter joke"
"Yes. A soupy twist"

AND IN OTHER NEWS. Site has been having improvements over the last couple of weeks which has broken a few things, hence no newsletters for a week, but we've emailed one today.... We would link it but that bit of the site still being fixed, so email only. Hooray.