Friday 31 August 2012

Hammer Films Song - new from the Socks

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre celebrate every single horror film ever in the world ever, in song. Enjoy.



A song so brilliant it got cut from Boo Lingerie, our Edinburgh show. What's that you say? You missed Boo Lingerie? Well let me tell you how brilliant Boo Lingerie was. It was so good, this song got cut from it and the show only got better, despite how good this song is. Though, admittedly, not live. Who knew? And another thing you should know... well, enough of my yakking. Let's have another look at those Socks 2012 reviews:

Edinburgh Evening News ★★★★★
Blog cutting

Fringe Review ★★★★★ "This is a masterful performance on all levels"

A Younger Theatre ★★★★★

The Public Reviews ★★★★ 

Giggle Beats ★★★★  

One4Review ★★★★

Edinburgh Spotlight Boo Lingerie ★★★★

Broadway Baby Boo Lingerie ★★★★

Broadway Baby (public) ★★★★★

Primary Times (who don't do stars)

Chortle ★★★

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre presented not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am.


Thursday 30 August 2012

Scottish Falsetto Socks Comic - on Kindle for the first time

Good news for all fans of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, their debut comic book is now available as a Kindle book for the first time. Click below to see a free sample.



Originally published as a paperback way back in 2008 (and still available as hardback or paperback from Blurb for only $7.85), this book collects up some of the Socks' most famous routines as comic strips, illustrated by Kev F out of The Beano. Strips include Torchwool, Halloween, Life on Mars, Deforestation, Primarkeval and their epic adaptation of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet.



Enjoy this bundle of fun for little over a quid on Kindle, and sample it for free now. If it's popular, the long-awaited second issue will follow.



Kev F comicbooks also available on Kindle:
Tales of Nambygate - Nitpicker General
Sinnerhound - Highwaywoman
Hot Rod Cow
The Tock - an illustrated book for children
The Immortal Partie - A Mr Hawk murder mystery adventure
Edinburgh Sketchbook 84-85

The following Sitcom Trials script books are on Kindle and come highly recommended:
The Lavender Millbank Mob
Go Wild In The Country
Kiss Me Son Of God
Situation Murder
Dead Air & Clarice
Didn't You Used To Be..?


Tales of Nambygate - on Kindle for the first time

Attention comic fans, and lovers of peurile graphic novelties everywhere! Good news for all our readers, The Rev F Sutherland's meisterwork Tales Of Nambygate is now available as a Kindle book for the first time. Click below to see a free sample.



Not the entire collection of stories, yet, just the self-contained adventure The Nitpicker General, originally serialised in the final issues of Gas magazine way back in 1991, and collected up in the Tales Of Nambygate graphic novel, the printed edition of which you can still get from Indy Planet for only $8.99.

Enjoy this pun-filled bundle of fun for little over a quid on Kindle, and sample it for free now. If it's popular, further Tales of Nambygate will follow soon.



The original comic pages looked like the picture above (and some are also included like this in the book). However in the Kindle version they are entirely repaginated to 1 or 2 images per screen, like so:






These and other atrocious gags (part of a genuinely marvellous self-contained adventure) can be yours in Tales of Nambygate - The Nitpicker General on Kindle. Sample it for free now.



Kev F comicbooks also available from UT Productions on Kindle:
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre Comic No 1
Sinnerhound - Highwaywoman
Hot Rod Cow
The Tock - an illustrated book for children
The Immortal Partie - A Mr Hawk murder mystery adventure
Edinburgh Sketchbook 84-85

The following Sitcom Trials script books are on Kindle and come highly recommended:
The Lavender Millbank Mob
Go Wild In The Country
Kiss Me Son Of God
Situation Murder
Dead Air & Clarice
Didn't You Used To Be..?

Wednesday 29 August 2012

★★★★ "More groans than Babestation" 4 Stars Giggle Beats

Never too late to get a ★★★★ 4 star #edfringe review, thankyou GiggleBeats



Review: The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre: Boo Lingerie – Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh

 
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre | Giggle Beats
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

Discounting appearances in The Sitcom Trials, The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre mark their fifth year at the Fringe with two different shows: a morning family show, and this, a late-night show for the grown ups. Doubling up like this seems to be the way forward for performers with the faintest ambition of losing less than thousands at the Fringe. The Sock Master, Kev F. Sutherland, skipped Edinburgh last year to save up for this year’s festival.

The set-up is simple. One bloke behind a Punch & Judy-style barrier that looks like it could attack the front row at any moment if the puppeteer breathed too hard. Hands inside socks. Puns. We’re off.
The late-night show uses horror films as a dartboard at which to throw pun after pun, and those that do bounce back are just as satisfying. The show has more groans than Babestation. The opening logo of “20th Century Sox”, reproduced on cardboard, establishes the tone for the evening. That so many laughs and groans can be repeatedly accrued from so many puns about socks is a credit to Sutherland’s performance.

It’s not just about the puns. There are some musical numbers, with cheeky little attachments to the puppets. Sorry, ‘performers’. These sequences are fun, but serve for Sutherland to get his breath back after the sustained machine-gun rate of delivery. The Socks are at their best when firing line after line at each other. The vocal, mental and, judging by the sweat on Sutherland’s face at the end, physical dexterity is pretty impressive. Ad libs are aplenty, and audience put-downs aren’t as face-threatening when they come from a pair of socks.

“The Socky Horror Show” is probably the joke that best demonstrates the kind of material we’re dealing with. I’m only retelling that gag here because it’s likely that will replace “Boo Lingerie” as the title for the touring version of this show. Hopefully the Socks will venture to the North East on this tour (they got as far as Salford in 2010), as they would feel comfy on a few stages I could think of.

Date of live review: Sunday 26th August 2012.
 

Sunday 26 August 2012

Edinburgh audit 2012


Here's a picture no-one should ever see: some bloke with sock puppets on his hands being filmed for a BBC Three programme on the Royal Mile, I would guess.

For the benefit of future planning, here comes the boring bit, my audit of Edinburgh 2012 (written after the final kids show and before the final Boo Lingerie performance).

2012 itself was unlike any previous year, as we have been going on and on about, with the Olympics effect having knocked almost everyone's takings. Since so many people have been honest about their figures, I'll be honest about mine. An example of frankness comes in this Tweet from Katherine Ryan, also on at the Gilded Balloon, who writes "YEEEAH BITCH to the 1848 bitches who came to see my show. I'm guessing most of you are called Gemma. Thanks Gemma! "

Well I can happily announce that The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre have performed to more than 1848 people this year. Hoorah. However you have to add our morning show and evening show together to get that total (which has exceeded the 2000 mark and still has time to rise). Morning show Chunky Woollen Nits ended up selling 698 tickets which, over the 16 shows (we only did Thurs to Sundays) averages out at 43 per show. Not a bad figure by most peoples standards, and beats our 2008 shows average of 39.3. But it doesn't compare with 2009's 75 a day and 2010's 79 a day averages, which were quite outstanding.

That said, if you combine our two shows, Chunky in the morning and Boo Lingerie at night, suddenly we have an average of 94 punters a day. Which, were we just doing one show and all those punters came to it instead of being spread across two shows, would be a record high. And had we been in our 2010 venue, which was a 90 seater, we would have averaged a 100% sellout. If that is technically possible.

Flyers. When I wrote my Edinburgh audit at the end of 2010's run I said "this year 10,000 was way too many... if I do next year, I would suggest I might be able to survive on a print run of 5000." Well, how wrong could I be? 2012 has required the most heavy flyering I have done since I began bringing the Socks to Edinburgh in 2007. I had 10,000 flyers printed and, after an hour's flyering this afternoon, will have got rid of every single one. In 2010 I had two thirds left over, and a similar wastage in 2009. But this year the painful fact of Edinburgh was that the Fringe goers were thin on the ground, outnumbered in a higher concentration than I have ever seen by Tattooies, the anorak-wearing, often foreign often provincial, hordes who arrive by the coachload at about 4.30, traipse down the Royal Mile once or twice, eat somewhere, then go to the Tattoo in the castle and are shipped out by the coachload at midnight. They never touch the sides of the Fringe, never go to a Fringe show, and are a waste of your flyers. This year most flyers must have gone into their hands. The usual traditional Fringe-goer, with their disposable income and a timetable of theatre and comedy shows at which they're going to spend it, had used that money to buy a ticket to see some obscure sport they'd never previously heard of at the Olympics and, as a result, couldn't also book their week's holiday in Edinburgh. So we learnt how to live without them. This we did by moaning to keep ourselves warm, inspecting our navels for food, and drinking our own tears. Next year will, pray God, be different. I'll definitely be printing 10,000 flyers.

 Weather - very good. In 2010 I wrote that it was the best weather we'd seen in Edinburgh since 1984, so I guess this year must have been the best weather since 2010. It's certainly been warm and sunny almost every day, I have worn my shorts and t shirt to flyer every day, and Godalmighty how miserable would we all have been if it had been rainy on top of everything else?

Late nights and shows - a record low for these for me. I think I went to the Loft Bar four times in four weeks, to Late & Live once, and saw only 4 or 5 shows. The art was pretty meh, nothing to rave about or overly slag-off (okay the show at the Talbot Rice where a guy in New York has got some street kids to make some average art, and has spun that out for 25 years, that was about as weak as it gets).

Telly - The Socks appeared on a BBC Three show, did a solo show on the BBC stage and an on-stage interview and performance on Janice Forsyth's Fringe Cafe, and appeared on Forth FM's Front Room Fringe, all highly enjoyable high profile high points of the month. And we did our first outdoor gigs too, playing the Gilded Garden four times, one of which got us a nice prominent photo in The Scotsman, so again all good stuff.

Reviews - all good. See below.

Promotion - This year I made the brave move not to take an ad in the Fringe programme, breaking a tradition we've maintained for every previous year. This saved me about £800 but did it harm box office? Actually, this year, I doubt it did. We'd have needed to sell nearly 100 extra tickets to justify it, and that would have been a big ask this time round. Next year? It may be worth the gamble, and will be down to whether I have 800 quid to spare in February (which, to be honest, this year I didn't).

So finally the shows, how do I feel about them? Chunky Woollen Nits I am delighted with because we proved we could perform a family friendly show which kids and parents enjoyed. It got the better reviews of the two shows and, being a Best-of show, that's understandable.

If anything I'm disappointed that Boo Lingerie contained material that was also Best-of and which also featured in Chunky Woollen Nits. This meant that, if anyone saw both shows, they had to watch Halloween and Sawing A Sock In Half twice. But unfortunately, despite my brave attempts in the previews, I never came up with an entire hour of Socky Horror material for Boo Lingerie that was quite as good as Halloween or that magic routine, so they stayed in.

The amount of material that was cut as we went along was quite unprecedented, and Boo Lingerie has definitely seen the most development through the month-long Edinburgh run of any show I can remember us doing. As the audience interaction grew, and The Socks' confidence with their new material allowed them to busk and improvise, we soon found we were having to cut paragraphs, scenes, and soon entire routines from the show, and still bumping up to our closing time every night. So the Bucket List routine, a new piece which was very well received, found itself bumped a good half a dozen times, and poor old Burke and Hare, which started off as a three minute sketch (featuring the Nicola Sturgeon bit, which I think only one audience ever got to see), has found itself compressed into 30 seconds a few times, and even cut entirely on one occasion (when a reviewer was in, but luckily that didn't hurt us). Frankenstein originally had a song in it, Lembit Opik's Eyes, which only saw the light of day half a dozen times before being lost to the tight timescale, as did most of the Frankenstein sketch. And anyone who saw the early previews in Harrogate, Brighton and Bath will have seen a show only 50% of which resembled the one we even started with here. No extended Poe routine, no Beatles routine, no Ga Ga Rasputin or We Didn't Start The Fire or Boo Lingerie songs, and definitely no cross-channel routine featuring the woman off Bang Goes The Theory. Of the preview audiences, I think only the Bedfringe lot got to see the Gotye song and Thriller, which are both part of the closing section and were very late additions.

So, a show that raced towards the finishing line in every way, but ended up delivering. Next year the working title is The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre in Space, and I want to start creating a brand new hour of sci-fi related material this coming week, and previewing it as early as the Leicester Comedy Festival in February, so this time we really will have an all-new show to knock em all dead. 2013, the year the punters returned - we're looking forward to it already.

Those Socks 2012 reviews:

Edinburgh Evening News ★★★★★
Blog cutting

Fringe Review ★★★★★ "This is a masterful performance on all levels"

A Younger Theatre ★★★★★

The Public Reviews ★★★★ 

Giggle Beats ★★★★  

One4Review ★★★★

Edinburgh Spotlight Boo Lingerie ★★★★

Broadway Baby Boo Lingerie ★★★★

Broadway Baby (public) ★★★★★

Primary Times (who don't do stars)

Chortle ★★★

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre presented not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am.



Saturday 25 August 2012

Fringe round up, winding down


Here as promised is the clip of The Socks on Forth One's Front Room Fringe, click to play. Appropriately, the Captcha I had to type in to upload this photo was "home, james"

And so we come to the end of a long month which has flown by. This Edinburgh Fringe, the Socks' fifth, has been an enjoyable experience packed with brilliant reviews (three 5 star reviews, which is a record, and more 4 stars than can be sniffed at - why even Chortle gave us the same rating they gave to half the acts who're nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Awards, so that can't be bad. Playing it down? Us. Shut up.)

And of course the big story will remain the box office slump, whether it was caused by the Olympics, the recession, the over-expansion of the corporate big venues and an over-abundance of comedy, the weather earlier in the summer, or a compbination of all the above. The subject will remain something that is discussed for entire days until we all forget about it and move on.

An excellent article in today's Scotsman by Claire Smith really does start to lift the lid on the situation, suggesting there will be more blood, feathers, handbags and other metaphors slung about before the dust settles (yes, another metaphor). She says "in the space of 24 hours, I'm threatened with legal action, not once, but twice - by two people I previously viewed with respect." She doesn't say who they are of course, giving the denizens of the Loft Bar tonight plenty of room for speculation, but I can certainly think of a number of agents and promoters who will be looking at some very worrying figures which they won't want bandied about. She says that, in 20 years of covering the Fringe, she has never seen so much paranoia.

"This week" she says "a famous TV comedian showed me a balance sheet from a major Fringe venue that showed £70,000 in ticket sales, of which just £7000 was paid to the performer."

All of which, added to the stories that have already been burbling out of Edinburgh all month, suggests there has to be some sort of reckoning ahead and significant changes to happen between now and next year. With so many acts going into the red, playing to smaller audiences than they've seen in years, and not reaching their breakeven, there must be a lot of agents and venues who are being told "sorry, but you're going to be owed this for a long time." The aforementioned legal action might go on to entail a lot of acts or smaller producers being sued for money that their venue, or agent, or larger promoter or PR company is owed. As we've seen from the few people who've aired their financial dirty laundry this month alone, that can be tens of thousands of pounds owed. Per act.

I know of one act who was offered, a couple of years ago, a deal by a promoter. The promoter asked for £30,000, assuring the act that they would get all the money that came in once the £30,000 was paid back. Given that the act was due to perform in a 90-seater room for 26 nights at £10 a ticket, you can see why they didn't say yes. It makes a student loan suddenly seem like a student grant.

So, given the bloodied noses and emptied pockets so many acts have suffered (not us, I hasten to add - we've done better than we did in 2009, and just short of our record-breaking 2010), who on earth will be daft enough to come up next year? Well, we will, obviously. And acts who made money this year are still plentiful. But beyond them? A quick look at the Fringe programme from the last couple of years will give you the answer to that question. Who'll come up next year? All the acts who didn't come up this year.

This Darwinian scramble may have seen more acts and shows picked off by the sniper of fate than usual, may have seen more little crippled boys from the end of the Pied Piper of Hamelin left behind than happens in an ordinary year, may have seen more souls lose their grip on the Raft of the Medusa and drown in the sea of the Olympics than... I'm not brilliant with metaphors am I? Point is, there's one born every Fringe hour (that's 55 minutes in real money), and next year there'll be comedians and thespians galore more than willing to stump up the readies to be part of the fun.

It will be interesting to see if the venues still charge the same and the agents and promoters still offer their wannabe acts the same deals. My betting is that they will.

Three shows - and two sleeps - till hometime. Come on Edinburgh, let's have fun to the last minute! (Here, enjoy the usual Turkey Trot of one-star stinkers to avoid, according to The Scotsman).

Also in the Scotsman today:

Andrew Eaton Lewis "The free Fringe looks like the way of the future, for better or worse"

Kate Copstick: "Change coming to the Fringe"

And online, Richard Herring's Modest Proposal for the Future Of The Fringe

Chortle: Fringe sales stable, down only 1%

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre presented not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am. Tickets are now on sale.





Wednesday 22 August 2012

Socks in a front room in Kinghorn with Chris Difford

Definitely the oddest and possibly most memorable gig of Edinburgh 2012, the Socks just performed in a front room in Kinghorn, Fife in front of a family who'd won a gig on Forth FM. Grant Stott MCed (and pressed the tracks on our iPod), The Socks opened, Al Pitcher in the middle, and Chris Difford and Norman Lovett to close. I know. It looked like this:


Photo courtesy of Rowan at the Gilded Balloon

When the gig's online I'll link to it, it appears as a video clip and an audio very soon.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre present not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am. Tickets are now on sale, book now!



Tuesday 21 August 2012

Kev's Edinburgh sketchbook 1984



As Edinburgh Fringe 2012 soars into its final blockbusting sellout week, and the debate continues to rage/waffle/whinge on (delete as appropriate) as to the Fringe's future and how it got into its current state, I am reminded of this, the sketchbook I drew on my very first visit to Edinburgh in 1984. I've collected it up into a book, which you can buy for just £2.99 if you are so inclined (click to see more and get such details). It captures an Edinburgh which is easily recognisable and also interesting to contrast with the current whirlwind comedy-filled scrum. I also think one of my drawings is worth a hundred Facebook snapshots (says he, about to upload those very sketches onto Facebook). Enjoy a couple of glimpses.






Kev F Comic Artist's very good friends The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre present not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am. Tickets are now on sale, book now!



Sunday 19 August 2012

"This is the show for you" - Primary Times on Chunky Woollen Nits

They don't give stars at the Primary Times, but if they did, I'm sure this review would be a 6.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

Reviewers:        

Helen Tulloch, Connor Whyte (10), Logan Whyte (9)
Dates:                   Aug 17 – 19, 24 – 26 |   11.00am

If you want a show to entertain you and make you laugh as much as the children you accompany, then this is the show for you.   The script skates fearlessly on the edge of adult and child humour,  with kids splitting their sides at the same time as adults, each enjoying their own interpretation of the humour.  The show (advertised for the over 7year olds) is packed with hilarious, off the cuff innuendos, outrageous humour and clever comedy.  You had to continually remind yourself it is a ‘one man does all’ to appreciate the sheer talent and sharpness of the delivery.  With plenty of eager audience participation from both children and adults, the show kept everyone engaged for the hour long performance, from start to finish.

The puppets, though simply done, are extremely funny with bug-eyes and numerous costume changes as they moved through their repertoire. The guitar and piano additions are very amusing and the costume disasters added to the humour and delighted  the children in the audience. 

I took my 9 and 10 year old grandchildren who both laughed their way through the entire hour-long show.  They enjoying the audience participation and ever-so-slightly occasional risqué humour. They enjoyed the entire show and chatted excitedly afterward recalling their funniest bits of the show and laughing again at the content they remembered best, both finding it difficult to choose their favourite part of the show, however,  the post-code sketch definitely featured along with Michael Jackson’s ‘Earth Song’ interpretation, which was my favourite!.

I would thoroughly recommend this show for the 7+ age group  and I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I too was entertained.   I will certainly not put on a sock for a long time without smirking!!

Saturday 18 August 2012

Dog do Dandy days


An appropriate image for this week when we had to clean dog muck off the entrance to our Edinburgh tenement, not once but twice.

In this most intense & exhausting of Edinburghs, it's been hard as always to keep up with the news going on in the rest of the world. The Olympics have come and gone with the outside world totally obsessed and Hev & I not having seen any of it, save the opening ceremony which was very good indeed. (Apparently the closing ceremony was a bit naff, so yah boo to all those who watched it rather than coming to our show, ha ha). But there have been two stories that have got through the mists of work and sleep - one being the Death of the Dandy and the other being the Dearth of the Punters at Edinburgh.



The Dandy story, which began with the suggestion that the Dandy was in trouble and which culminated in the news that it'll be cancelled as a weekly comic on its 75th birthday in December, saw me writing a blog which is my most read for months, doing an interview with Scotland on Sunday (appearing tomorrow - here it is*), and doing a radio interview down the line with BBC Radio Bristol (clip above). It's kept the Twitterati chatting, with many plans being made and many different opinions abounding. I particularly like this piece by Jacqueline Rayner in the Guardian which the story has inspired. And I remain optimistic that the comics will be fine as soon as the publishers start making proper books out of them. Like I keep saying, people will buy books, but no-one in this day and age is going to keep buying a disposable periodical printed on paper every week.

Then along comes this story. Private Eye reports its best sales in 25 years. So what do I know?

The Edinburgh Whinge. Okay, I know it's not that big a surprise that an Edinburgh story should have got through to us within its bubble, but really is a big one. This year has been the year the Edinburgh bubble burst. Or, if it didn't burst, it suffered a few big pricks and - no, that wouldn't be news would it. This year a combination of the Olympics, the poor weather of the early summer (which is hard to remember now that we've had three solid weeks of splendid sun up here), and the economy itself has led to the Edinburgh Fringe suffering a significant drop in revenues (stories nicely summed up here). Of course opinions differ, but I think these articles and their representative quotes give you the idea...

"Squeaky bum time at Fringe" - Scotsman

 "A very healthy Fringe" vs "the worst since 2007" - The Stage

Karen Koren being quoted in the Scotsman saying sales are not down 30 percent (which everyone has taken to mean they are down at least 30 percent)

And my favourite, Richard Herring's blog including the immortal phrase (the Olympics) "has sucked out all the punters as if someone opened the door on a space craft"

Whatever the true facts of the matter are, I certainly turn out to have chosen the least opportune year to put on two Socks shows a day, and to put them on in my biggest room ever (though, to be fair, when I booked it The Billiard Room was only 80 seats big as it had been when I last played there to sellout crowds in 2009, not the 105 seats it's suddenly expanded into). As well as suffering the lack of punters as described above, I've then taken what potential audience I may have had and rent them in twain. I'm doing better than most, and indeed were I in my 2007/8 room The 50-seater Balcony I'd have enjoyed 16 sellout or one-short-of-sellouts already this month. If I were doing one show instead of two, and the same people turned up who have spread themselves between these two shows, I'd have played to some weekend crowds 3 times larger than anything I've seen before, and would have sold out nearly half the time. But 2012 will go down as the year when ambitious schemes like a kids show and a night-time show, instead of being a guaranteed moneyspinner, turned out to be an exercise in knackering yourself by exerting twice the effort in performance for about the same reward.

Added to which flyering has been the biggest challenge I can remember. By the middle of this second week of the Fringe I had used up 2 thirds of my flyer supply. This compares with 2010 when I ended the month with a third of my flyers still in their box and 11 sellouts under my belt. Again, it's the lack of punters that is clear and palpable. There's no shortage of actual humans walking up and down the Royal Mile, but the proportion of them who are Fringer-goers is tiny in comparison to normal years.

The Olympics effect has brought an incredible number of foreign tourists, almost all of whom are attending the Military Tattoo, which I expect to have done its best business ever, but most of whom are only in town for one day and will not go to see a single Fringe show. The familiar Fringe punter, with their timetable in a notebook in which they have pre-planned their schedule of theatre and art, is almost non-existent, and those that have been visible have been much older than used to be the case.

That said, as I write this on Saturday evening (the 3rd Saturday of the Fringe) the new wave of week-long tourists has arrived, and at last they look like our kind of punters. I've just done what seemed like the most fruitful three hours of flyering so far this year. Since I finished, it's added a paltry 7 sales to tonight's show, but I'm looking forward to that improving between now and curtain up.

UPDATE: Saturday night and I just finished the most fantastic Boo Lingerie show to one of our best audiences. And the best news is that total sales for the Socks at Edinburgh 2012 is exactly equal - exactly, what are the chances? - to the sales at this point in 2010. So well done us. It's taking twice the effort but we're doing the business. And tomorrow the Socks perform a solo show on the BBC stage, one of very very few shows to be doing so. Yes, that was boasting there.



We have taken a few moments to look at some stuff purely for pleasure, this being above average art at Ricky DeMarco's new Summerhall Gallery

*In the Scotland on Sunday article, most of my quotes have wound up on the cutting room floor. The one that does survive has been slightly mangled. I appear to refer to "a book – such as in the Beano or Dandy annuals that are on the shelves all year round". Of course my point was that Beano and Dandy annuals are not on the shelves all year round, and that if they were, then that would be a good model. I was pointing out that annuals are a wasted opportunity because they sell well then go off the shelves in January, and I have ended up appearing to say almost the opposite. Cuh.

★★★★ "Never mind the stand-ups" Edinburgh Spotlight on Boo Lingerie

A lovely 4 star review from Edinburgh Spotlight.

FRINGE REVIEW – Boo Lingerie, The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, Gilded Balloon

FRINGE REVIEW – Boo Lingerie, The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, Gilded Balloon

Leave a comment *****




It’s as if Morecambe and Wise have been reincarnated as a pair of socks.
One of the wooly grey googly-eyed creations is the straight sock, attempting to bring to life his serious dramatisations of horror classics. Whilst literally on the other hand, his partner in footwear does all he can to cause chaos, through a series of witty, pun-filled and downright daft interjections.
After a break last year, The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre make a welcome return to the Fringe with the (very loosely) horror themed Boo Lingerie. The brainchild of Kev Sutherland, the socks’ intentionally shambolic shows are a consistent delight: impressing not only with their charmingly chaotic puppetry, but with the quality of Sutherland’s writing and comic ad-libbing.
Humour ranges from gloriously cringeworthy puns to knitwear-delivered witticisms (“wouldn’t sinister footsteps just be the sound of hopping?”); all of this coupled with a tartan-draped puppet booth which wobbles and shakes as the Socks swap outfits, bring on ‘special guests’ and reach for their musical instruments.
Amidst the quickfire quips and clever asides, it’s easy to forget that this double act are the creation of only one man. Whether performing a song about the cliches of slasher movies, or presenting a ridiculous dramatisation of Jekyll & Hyde, Sutherland’s inspired skill and manic energy always impresses: and his rude but lovable sock-clad hands always entertain.
So never mind the stand-ups, here’s the Sock Puppets.
Boo Lingerie is at the Gilded Balloon until 26 Aug at 2240. More details are available on the Fringe website.

★★★★ "Sock It To 'Em" - Broadway Baby on Boo Lingerie

BROADWAY BABY REVIEW

Sock It To 'Em

Broadway Baby Rating:
Socks playing guitar. Socks doing magic. Socks arguing over the meaning of the term ‘Halloween’. Socks making many, many puns. The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, exactly what it says it is, is a loud, crude and very enjoyable hour of comedy in which a pair of socks seem to be able to do anything except stick to their script. The two socks of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, brainchild of comic Kev F Sutherland, are here to present Boo Lingerie, or the ‘Socky Horror Show’ as one of them prefers. As you might infer it’s a show all about horror, though the socks differ quite significantly in their definition of what makes for good horror. Along the way they make room for a retelling of Jekyll and Hyde with a brilliantly stupid twist, several humorously ragged songs with a determined lack of timing and an extended routine involving Ann Robinson, the priest from The Exorcist and a golf commentator. Not every joke is a winner: a song about horror movie serial killers evokes a lot of tropes that are thoroughly trodden ground by now (the final girl remaining at the end, you die if you have sex, etc.), but the gag rate is very high and the Socks are fine with poking fun at themselves and each other when one doesn’t land. There are several moments when one sock remains on stage while the other burrows for a prop or costume. Watching a sock stalling for time is quite a unique experience, and Sutherland was always amusingly upfront about it.
A lot of people most likely already know whether The Sock Puppet Theatre is their sort of thing. For those who don’t: if you would describe your pun tolerance as ‘middling to low’, you probably need not apply. For everyone else, the Socks are as ridiculous and hilarious as ever. They’re as ramshackle as they ever have been, too. Last night’s show ended in quite a hurry, skipping completely over a Burke and Hare routine as the Socks rather hastily claimed to have run out of time. What happened next I won’t spoil, but it made me doubt that they were being entirely truthful. If they genuinely did overrun then Sutherland has an outstanding contingency plan for wrapping things up in a hurry. If not, then well played sir. Well played.
Reviewer:
Jon Stapley
Jon Stapley has written 20 reviews for Broadway Baby since joining the team in 2012.

Friday 17 August 2012

The Socks on BBC Scotland's Festival Cafe



The Fringe is back, the genuine punters seem to be returning after the Olympics, and the Socks have just made the first of two appearances on the BBC's stage at their Potterow venue. On Sunday we'll be playing a 40 minute show there, for which 300 tickets have already been snapped up, and today we were guests on Janice Forsyth's Festival Cafe show on BBC Radio Scotland. Brilliant fun.

Hear the episode on iPlayer here



The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre present not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am. Tickets are now on sale, book now!



Thursday 16 August 2012

The Socks on BBC Three Free Speech

Yes, we were on BBC Three last night, on the live debate show Free Speech. Watch us now on iPlayer...



Oh, you didn't just watch the whole show did you? Sorry, should have explained, we don't appear till the end credits (scroll forward to the 55 minute mark). Brilliant to have a slot all to ourselves, however short, though we have to say we recorded funnier bits. We recorded bits about Scottish oil - "hands off my oil, I've got it in a wee can in the garage like that MP suggested" - and needing passports to get out of Scotland - "wouldn't fingerprints and retina scans be difficult for us?". And what do they use? An outtake, though to be honest that was probably funnier than the actual punchline.

And the words bleeped out at the end? Let's see if you can guess.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre present not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am. Tickets are now on sale, book now!



Wednesday 15 August 2012

Socks Boo Lingerie t-shirt now available in Edinburgh

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre have produced a BRAND NEW T-SHIRT for 2012's Edinburgh Fringe show Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show, and they are now here, in all sizes, with us in Edinburgh. If you want one text 07931 810858 and we'll arrange to meet you and hand it over for the post-free price of just £10

Here's that Boo Lingerie design...



Each shirt normally costs £18 inc postage / $28US inc postage.
If you want to order one from outside Edinburgh, simply pay £18/$28 by Paypal to sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk including in your order the size you want and your full address.

However if you're already in Edinburgh, or you're going to be here next week, you can collect it in person from the Socks and save almost half the cost. A tenner? We're robbing ourselves.*

Sizes are:
(Male) S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL
(Female) S, M, L Skinnyfit
Kids Age 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-11, 12-13, 14-15

Either text 07931 810858 or email sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk and they're yours.


The Boo Lingerie design, close up

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre present not one but two new shows at the Edinburgh Fringe 2012: Boo Lingerie - A Socky Horror Show every night at 10.40pm and Chunky Woollen Nits - The Family-Friendly Hour at 11am. Tickets are now on sale, book now!





*NB We are not robbing ourselves.
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