In this episode, we feature 'The Doctor Won't See You'; a comedy sketch submitted by experienced comedy writer James Docherty to the second episode of the second series of BBC Radio 4's open door sketch comedy show DMs Are Open. The prompt for that episode was 'Love' and we hear from James about his approach to responding to that brief.

James is a sketch and joke writer with work appearing on Breaking The News, Noising Up, DMs Are Open, The Treason Show, and Newsbiscuit. You can find James on Bluesky @jsdocherty.bsky.social, Threads @j_s_docherty, and Reddit @james_s_docherty.

If you're not familiar with The Reject Pile, you'll first hear our cast's performance of the sketch, before host Luke Edwards deep dives into the writing, feedback and editing process through a discussion with James and resident script editor, Phil Stewart.

'The Doctor Won't See You' was performed by Alexis Coward, Rachel Cook (YouTube, Instagram), Ronan Hatfull and Rob Stephenson.

If you would like to submit any of your rejected works of art or entertainment, please get in touch at [email protected] or @RejectPilePod on Instagram, Threads, X, Bluesky or Facebook.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lredwards.substack.com