The Deadpan Anchor: Why the Funniest Person in the Sketch Is Often Doing the Least

Every sketch has a moment when the absurdity arrives: a vicar produces a flame-thrower, a customer asks for a refund on a haunted kettle, a man in a sensible anorak explains that he is, in fact, the moon. The audience is ready to laugh. What happens next depends almost entirely on the person standing opposite.

If that person laughs first, the sketch deflates. If they wink at the camera, the sketch apologises for itself. But if they simply stare — tired, polite, faintly disappointed — the absurdity has somewhere to land. That is the deadpan hero: the straight man or woman who does almost nothing and somehow carries the whole thing.

At Sketchfilm, we spend a lot of time talking about punchlines, props and whether a car park in Croydon can pass for Mars. We spend less time on the person who has to stand in that car park and say, with complete sincerity, ‘I think you’ll find that’s a skip.’ It is time to correct that.

The thankless art of not joining in

The straight role is often mistaken for the easy role. It looks like the part where you just stand there while the funny person does the funny thing. In practice, it is closer to holding a door open while a piano falls through it: the timing has to be exact, the effort has to be invisible, and if you get it wrong, everyone notices.

A good straight performance is not a lack of performance. It is a very specific set of choices — where to look, when to blink, how long to wait before saying ‘Right’ — all designed to make someone else’s joke feel inevitable. It is the comedy equivalent of being a good straight man in a music hall double act: you are the reason the audience knows where the beat is.

This is especially true in British sketch comedy, where the national instinct is often to underplay. We like our absurdity served in a sensible cardigan. The deadpan anchor is the cardigan.

Why deadpan reads as British

British comedy has always had a soft spot for the person who refuses to acknowledge the chaos. Morecambe and Wise worked because Ernie Wise could look genuinely baffled by a man who had just played an entire piano with his feet. The Two Ronnies built sketches on the contrast between ornate nonsense and a flat ‘I see.’ The Fast Show understood that a repeated catchphrase is only funny if somebody in the scene is quietly dying inside.

Contemporary sketch has the same wiring. Catherine Tate’s Lauren sketches need the teacher who is trying to do their job; the comedy is not just Lauren’s insolence, but the adult’s increasingly desperate commitment to normal professional behaviour. A competitive dad sketch needs a child who would rather be anywhere else. A workplace sketch needs the colleague who has been on hold to HR for forty minutes.

In 2026, short-form comedy has made this even more important. A sketch that lives in a tea break has no time for a warm-up. It needs an anchor immediately: a face that tells the audience the rules of the world before the world breaks them. The deadpan hero is the shorthand.

Writing the straight role: give them a job, not a punchline

The most common mistake in sketch writing is treating the straight character as a passenger. They exist only to ask ‘What are you doing?’ and then get out of the way. But a straight role with no wants is just a coat rack.

Give them a job. Give them a reason to be there. A plumber wants to finish before lunch. A receptionist wants to get through the appointment book without a fire. A neighbour wants to establish whether the noise is coming from a party or a séance. The absurdity then has something to push against, and the audience has someone to root for.

Second, write reactions as questions that raise the stakes rather than simply express disbelief. ‘What?’ is a dead end. ‘Is that going to be on the invoice?’ opens a door. ‘Do you want me to put the kettle on, or shall we wait for the police?’ does both.

Third, resist the urge to give the straight character a late-breaking joke. A small moment of human weakness can be lovely — a sigh, a glance at the watch, a muttered ‘Of course’ — but if they suddenly become the wildest person in the room, the anchor has been cut and the sketch drifts out to sea.

Performing it: eyes, breath and the courage to do less

For performers, the deadpan role is a discipline in listening. You are not waiting for your line; you are genuinely taking in the nonsense and deciding, moment by moment, how a reasonable person would respond. The eyes do most of the work. A tiny shift in focus can say ‘I have understood you and I am choosing not to scream.’

Breath is the other secret weapon. A sharp inhale before a flat ‘No’ can be funnier than any line. A long exhale after the absurdity has landed can give the audience permission to laugh. The temptation is to fill the silence with a facial expression — a raised eyebrow, a pursed lip, a look to camera — but in sketch comedy, the camera is not your friend. The other character is. Play to them.

And do not corpse. This is easier said than done when someone is wearing a false moustache and explaining that they are legally a swan. But breaking character is a very specific trick, and it only works if the sketch has been built around it. If the straight hero laughs, the audience often stops.

The 2026 case: short-form needs an anchor

In 2026, sketches are watched in fragments, on phones, between trains and meetings. The attention is generous but impatient. A deadpan anchor gives the audience an instant way in: this is the reasonable world, that is the ridiculous one, and here comes the collision. It also makes a sketch more rewatchable, because the straight performance is full of tiny choices that only reveal themselves on the second viewing.

For producers, this means casting the straight role carefully. It is not the part for the least funny person in the room. It is the part for the most trusted person in the room — the one who can hold a pause without looking like they have forgotten their line, and who can make a cup of tea look like the last act of a Greek tragedy.

So here is to the deadpan hero: the flat ‘Right,’ the slow blink, the stare that says ‘I have a mortgage and I am not going to entertain this.’ They may not get the biggest laugh in the sketch. But without them, the biggest laugh never arrives.

If you are making a sketch this year, give your anchor a job, a want and a decent pair of shoes. Then let the chaos come through the door. They will know what to do. Probably.