Written It Down is a five-episode “unscripted comedy,” featuring members of the Australian improv troupe the Big HOO-HAA! The set-up: A couple sits at a table in a coffee shop. One of them has something to tell the other. They don’t know how to say it, so they’ve written it down.
And so they read a line off a piece of paper, given to them by the producers. This decides where the scene goes next, which takes the audience suggestion involved in an improv show out of the equation. In the first episode, which might actually be the best, Sophie Miller Chatfield tells Stuart Packham it’s time to break up, because she can’t stand his obsessive movie reviews. In the dialogue that follows, Packham never strays from character and manages to squeeze in even more movie references to prove her point. It’s sort of like Curb Your Enthusiasm but for breakups.
Elsewhere, a woman confesses that she knows her boyfriend’s on acid; a man declares that he’s going to follow his dream and pogo-jump around Australia. In the latter episode, Wyatt Nixon-Lloyd’s line leads to an absurd conversation about infidelity and pogo-jumping.
If only all breakups could be handled this way.
Screengrab via Written It Down/YouTube