Socks in Space in Progress

A week of Socks in Space previews and, by golly, I think we're getting there. This week the Socks played the first of three shows at the Leicester Square Theatre in London (60 min preview), the Victoria Theatre Halifax (90 min show of which the second half was mostly preview), and the Wardrobe Theatre Bristol (intended as 60 min preview, but ended up doing 1 hr 20 mins, inc some old favourite stuff).



(Above, London Tuesday). In part or in whole these shows have been testing out the new show Socks In Space on its run up to Edinburgh and it is progressing well. Brand new this week were:

- Doctor Who song - needs cutting in half, not bad.
- Green Screen song - good laughs, needs shortening. By the 3rd show we'd integrated it into the drama better.
- Break up song (Elton/disco) which works well.

Paul (Gannon, who was doing sound in London) runs Geekatorium and is a sci fi expert, so I value his input, His only real criticism was that we could lose the CPR sketch, which is now my favourite in the show and was a total hit in Bristol. Also in Bristol a fenzy of ad libs brought the whole Melies routine to life, and if we can remember any of what we did we'll do that again (if the off-screen suicide of Zeppo makes it to Edinburgh, this is where it was dreamt up in improv). Hev, in Halifax, suggested the Dr Who song might be a bit dated, so possibly it'll be squeezed out. London also drew possibly our most non-plussing review of recent years from What's On In London. "While sock puppets aren’t normally my thing, there were definitely moments in this show that had me laughing, nevertheless" will not be going on the posters.

Last week's writing has brought some killer new jokes, and songs of which I'm really proud, and which will be even tighter when a couple of them use a verse apiece . A new sketch is bubbling under that'll bring the whole shebang together. Next stop London on Tuesday, see you all there.