Delilah - new song / video / outtake from the Socks

Brand new on the Youtube, the Socks unveil another outtake from Minging Detectives. Their take on Delilah. And songs about serial killers. Yes, yes, it would be great to show you all the great, funny, successful, stuff-that-really-works from our mega crime-themed extravaganza but we're in an ongoing "keeping our powder dry" situation with stuff like that. They saw some in Barton last week and liked it, so hold your breath and keep waiting. It really will be worth it.

Did we mention tickets for Edinburgh are on sale already? Yes they are selling, and quite nicely FOR APRIL! (Never been on sale this early, it's brilliant. Thankyou forward-planners of the comedy-going world.)

The Socks do new material from Minging Detectives, and the best of their recent satire, on tour

May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 Spread Eagle Croydon
July 24 Porters, Cardiff
July 25 Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Me in Writing Comedy, and The War Cry, and Oink

 I am indebted to the good people of Hodder & Stoughton who have sent me, totally out of the blue, a copy of Writing Comedy by Lesley Bown. Why, I wondered, had I been so honoured? And the reason is that I'm in it.

I'd totally forgotten that Lesley had interviewed me online, all about comedy writing, following her involvement with The Sitcom Trials over the years. Coincidentally the Sitcom Trials has reared its head again this week, with shows being announced in Birmingham, Cardiff and Manchester. What were the chances? Here are some more of my words of wisdom.

I'm sure I'll get round to reading Writing Comedy shortly, but just in case I don't get a chance to write a review of it let's just say "a definitive and authoritative guide, and a fun read to boot - 5 stars, Kev F Sutherland" and look forward to seeing that in the next edition.

And while I'm on, have I written anything worth recording on Facebook or Twitter in the last month..?

The Guardian proofreader, you had one job http://www.theguardian.com/uk (from Guardian online, front page, now)

Well done, Amazon, well done.

Ooh look, my Samson strip's been mentioned in The War Cry. The big time. Photograph courtesy of Audrey in Bodelwyddan.

How puerile am I? Laughing out loud cos a commentator said "I've got the Oxford cocks in my ear". ‪#‎boatrace‬

Thanks to Phil Boyce and his Oink! comic blog for unearthing this strip I wrote and drew for Oink 27 years ago. How many breakfast puns? And how dated are most of them? http://the-oink-blog.blogspot.co.uk/…/57-completely-unrelat…

Vampire Afro Sheep - new comics by kids

A healthy bit of travelling and some good long days work and here we have a bulging grab bag of brand new comics by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses. Above we see the creations of two primary schools in Northumbria, paid for by the Hexham Book Festival who not only paid for the classes and the above-average length of travel, but put Hev and I up in a lovely little guest house in the smashing historic town of Hexham. (Google it. How many wars have they had in that market place?). And when the day in schools was over, I did an evening session in the library too...

...with a title that came straight from the 1950s (which became a bit of a running joke. I do seem to conjure up a lot of references from the distant past without realising). The photo of me grinning cheesily comes from Dyson Perrins school in Malvern where the kids came up with these comics:

The pupils were from various intake primary schools, ranging from year 4 to the school's year 7s, and a wonderful diversity of comic strips resulted. And last week I was working with pupils in Swindon...

Nylands school has pupils with special educational needs, though frankly I couldn't tell. Excellent work all round, and a treat to work with. This week's pupils were all asked to select a celebrity for me to draw in the "treads on a worm" demonstration strip, and these seven groups plumped for Dec, Johnny Depp, David Tennant, Stephen Hawking, Lady Gaga, Vin Diesel and Alan Carr. (No Simon Cowell this time, though he was one of the suggestions in a third of classes).

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

Minging Detectives Dick (about in) Barton - work in progress

Thanks to everyone at the Ropewalk in Barton On Humber now (possibly our 5th time there) for a cracking Socks gig, including the biggest tryout of new Minging Detectives material so far.

It's the first 90 minute show we've done this year that didn't contain any of Socks In Space. Even when we were getting our 5 star review at the Rondo in Bath last week, the review mentioned that things like the David Bowie song and Star Wars were getting over-familiar, and we have been including a good half hour of S.I.S. in the touring show since it ran in Edinburgh in 2013. Well tonight they got none of it.

The first half was almost entirely ...And So Am I (last year's satire show) with lots of opportunity to ad lib and talk about the election. We included Earth Song & the Magic routine, but that was it for the first 45 mins (no old faithfuls like Halloween, What's Missing Off TV, Local Zombies, Crack in the Toilet or Exorcist). Then in part 2 we opened with the Combine Mumford song from And So Am I, then launched into the new Minging Detectives gear.

New punny material got mostly laughs but some groans. From memory the groaners were Cannon, Rebus and the laughs were Luthor, Persuaders, Magnum, NYPD Blue, In Cold Blood.

Merchant of Venice - OK, needs better punchline.

Dixon of Dock Green - nothing much

Z Cars - excellent. And the costumes very good.

(Then threw in Walk On Wild Side to get great laughs)

Black & White Minstrels (now 30 secs shorter) - some very good laughs, costumes help.

Inspector Morse - very good, good punchline. (Used new cop outfit, which needs material)

Sofie Grabol (ad-libbed Y/J routine) - good but lacked punchline. Good response for costume.

The Sweary - some parts very good, will get funnier. Needs costumes.

(Then threw in 4 Horsemen song, which perked show back up again)

Hatton Garden Heist - great laughs for new costumes by Hev, then some good laughs throughout. Will get better. Not a bad end for the show (though I'm betting something even better will develop)

We then ended with the Baby In The Corner running gag, which had been threaded through the show, it's a very good way of stringing new unrelated sketches together and giving us a good close.

Then for finale we ad-libbed musicals, with a particularly good and drawn-out 7 Brides for 7 Brothers going on for ages and getting better as it went. One of those bits that only works when you've got a really good and supportive audience, which tonight's were, they were fab.

And finally Sweary Poppins and we were off.

So, an excellent show, and a triumph to have proved we can do a Socks In Space-free 90 mins. There was about 30 mins of Minging Detectives, almost all of it staying in the show, which is a great position to be in a this point in the run up to Edinburgh. (In comparison, in the last week of June 2013, Socks In Space was doing a run of previews in which I was trying out new songs, 2 out of 3 of which were cut from the final show, and we were still including things like the Melies routine which I'd long since forgotten, it was long gone by August )

More writing ahead, and by the way I'm really enjoying it.

The Socks do new material from Minging Detectives, and the best of their recent satire, on tour

Apr 18 Ropewalk Barton
Apr 24 Neath NRG Cafe
May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 - Spread Eagle Croydon
July 24 - Porters Cardiff
July 25 - Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Call the cops - first new costume for Minging Detectives + new ad

A good couple of days this week have been spent preparing Minging Detectives, with some good new bits of script emerging that will be tested for the first time on Saturday at the Ropewalk in Barton. Also the first new costumes for the show, with more still in development.

This rather low-res photo (cock up on the Photoshop front) shows the new cop outfit that I've made, which doesn't yet have the script to go with it, though it will make an appearance on Saturday. And sitting at home we have Hev's fantastic handiwork on two 1960s police uniforms (for Z Cars and the Black & White Minstrels song, and possibly other sketches), and two excellent jumpers - a Sofie Grabol The Killing, and a Dennis The Menace who's now a bank robber -  both knitted by Anet and amended by Hev.

New script material includes a bank robbery sketch and a shedload of new excruciating wordplay material (let us see how well the NYPD Blue, Magnum, Cannon, Persuaders, PD James, In Cold Blood, Morse and Sherlock gags go, all new this week).

Ooh, just remembered, I need to burn a new CD of the newly shortened Black & White Minstrels song (shaved 30 seconds off it yesterday) and the Cop Reggae medley (added a minute to it last week, it acts as the first 4 mins of the new audience in music).

Now that Edinburgh tickets are on sale (though none sold yet, chiz chiz) I've started tweeting our teaser ads, the "Titles that we reject". And a new one was added to the existing pile of 17 images this week. Namely...

Now having great fun with the scripts, the props, and the promotion for Minging Detectives, but I really having to knuckle down on putting out proper promotions to the wider media, ensuring the telly and all come along to Edinburgh, and making it the best show ever. Onwards.

The Socks do new material from Minging Detectives, and the best of their recent satire, on tour

Apr 18 Ropewalk Barton
Apr 24 Neath NRG Cafe
May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 - Spread Eagle Croydon
July 25 - Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Socks Edinburgh flyers since 2007 - inc the latest

A design classic in the making, here are the Socks Edinburgh flyers since 2007, laid out on the desk in my studio, including the latest, fresh out of the design mill. It's fun to see how they've changed over the years.

That first one, from 2007, makes me cringe. It wasn't until the following year that the Socks had any costumes whatsoever, and even then they spent most of the show naked. By 2009 they'd perfected the costume changes that are now their trademark, two of which they wear proudly on the 3rd flyer, and by 2010 we had the Star Wars costumes, as you can see.

The flyers, and my on-street technique, have always played a major part on the show's success. I've maintained, since my very first Fringe show with The Sitcom Trials in 2011, that 300 flyers given out in a day should turn into 30 bums on seats, a 10% hit rate, and I still think that holds true. Though over the years the competition has got stiffer. Certainly over those first four years (07-10) the Socks audiences grew steadily, giving a wonderful rising graph and an ever-growing collection of sellout emblems. Then we took 2011 off, and when we returned...

2012's Boo Lingerie, which is still one of my favourite titles though nobody but nobody else seems to like it, suffered from taking place in Olympic year, when every show took a hit. Our audiences were so far down on 2010's high it was embarrassing. Worse, we'd also agreed to do a kids show in the morning, which meant we had a double-sided flyer (you can only see one side here, the other "Chunky Woolen Nits" being a rehash of 2009's flyer), and split our available audience in two. We ended up getting almost exactly as many bums on seats as we had two years ago, but had to do twice as many shows to get them!

2013's Socks In Space is a favourite show and a favourite flyer - with audiences rising again to match - and 2014's ...And So Am I satire show was another triumph, despite the laziest flyer of all (virtually a repeat of 2009's, with a new guitar).  And so to 2015's Minging Detectives...

Ta-daa. I think we have another winner here, I look forward to it doing the work. And look, the Gilded Balloon's celebrating 30 years at Edinburgh - and I've been doing shows there for half that time. Here's to us, now to a) design the back of the flyer and b) write the bloody show!

UPDATE. The back. (Still not written the show):

The Socks do new material from Minging Detectives, and the best of their recent satire, on tour

Apr 4 Rondo Bath Comedy Festival
Apr 18 Ropewalk Barton
Apr 24 Neath NRG Cafe
May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 - Spread Eagle Croydon
July 25 - Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

My Fat Bum - new comics by kids

It's the Easter holidays for schools, so I've been doing Comic Art Masterclasses in a library and an art centre with kids of all ages. Here we see the inventions of a couple of small groups in Alton in Hampshire. My Fat Bum is the sort of title I try to avoid in schools, because I know there's always going to be someone who'll complain. But in the holidays, it's open season on fat bums.

And these are the comics from Harpenden library in Herts. Interestingly these two slightly uninspired titles came from two big groups, with 32 titles to choose from in one case, whereas the slightly more interesting titles came from two very small groups, only 8 apiece as a result of a technical cockup (a third party had booked, and paid for, 20 tickets per class then didn't pass them on to the kids, which meant they'd been turning people away from the classes). I wonder if there's some statistical correlation between the size of the group and the mundanity of the title they ended up choosing? Either way, the title "Something Something  I Had No Idea What To Call It" is quite a challenge when it comes to thinking what to draw on the cover.

 

Why yes, of course I posed cheesily by a flipchart. Don't I always?

The Hot Rod Cow-themed comics from Kent, you've seen in an earlier blog. Across these 6 classes, the celebrities that they chose to tread on a worm were Simon Cowell (three times in total), David Cameron, Katy Perry and Michael Jackson.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.