Yes, now you ask we were in Portmeirion for the day and thought we'd make something up on the spot, and it was a bit rubbish. Sue us.
Merchandise, Facebook Fan Club, Tour dates.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
The Prisoner - new from the Socks
What? Is 42 years late too late to be topical? Whatever, the Socks have just done their version of The Prisoner:
Yes, now you ask we were in Portmeirion for the day and thought we'd make something up on the spot, and it was a bit rubbish. Sue us.
Merchandise, Facebook Fan Club, Tour dates.
Yes, now you ask we were in Portmeirion for the day and thought we'd make something up on the spot, and it was a bit rubbish. Sue us.
Merchandise, Facebook Fan Club, Tour dates.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Doctor Who theme 2010, I'm not sure
The only thing I'm not crazy about with the new series of Doctor Who is the theme tune. It now sounds like this.
Once upon a time it sounded like this: 1963 Dr Who credits. This is a marvellous piece of music, written by Ron Grainer (who also wrote Steptoe & Son and many more) and performed by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It is the very epitomy of an enigmatic, mysterious signature tune for a drama. Even today no listener can be entirely sure how those notes are made. It sounds like no instrument that has ever existed, and indeed every note was unique to the show, being a mixture of recorded and manipulated sounds, "sampled" by Derbyshire in the most hands-on way. Using primitive, innovative synthesisers and recording equipment, and making up almost every technique they used as they went along, Delia and team produced noises that still sound other-worldly.
Grainer's tune has a simple dramatic bassline, sounding like it was conceived for timpani and double bass, which is then performed by some mechanical means which has qualities a bit like a bell made of rubber. Then in comes the melody, and no note is hit perfectly on time, each delayed or premature, as if they have been retrieved from outer space or crept into the back of your head. And what instrument does that sound like? In 2010 I'd struggle to make that noise given the breadth of technological gizmos hidden in my computer, but in 1963 what sound on earth had ever sounded like that? None, obviously.
That basic theme tune had some developments and, I'm not afraid to say, improvements over the years. By the 1970s it was crisp, clean, punchy, and had lost none of its mystery: Tom Baker credits 1974. And so it could have stayed.
The first lesson in missing the point with the Doctor Who theme tune came in the 1980s when, as well as losing its grip on the point of the show, someone decided to make the music sound thin, shallow, reedy, pathetic, and dated as soon as it was broadcast: 1987 Dr Who credits. Yuck. Not only is the logo so hideous even blind viewers complained, but the music has been re-performed, so precisely that you can almost see the fingers hitting the Casio keyboard, and with such a run-of-the-mill synthesiser sound that a kid in their bedroom could have made it. Worst of all, the bassline has been re-jigged, almost literally, so that you could dance a jig to it. Listen to this version and picture some English country dancers or pixies skipping along to it. How mysterious? None mysterious, that's how much. This was the theme tune of a TV show that deserved cancelling.
In 1996 the TV movie version took a classic film-themed approach to the Doctor Who theme, which turned it on its head. 1996 Who credits. Not at all bad, the music is being taken seriously, but there's a bit too much emphasis on the melody, we've lost the power of that dramatic bassline. If only, through the Marxist dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, we could end up with the perfect theme for the 21st century...
Ta-da! 2006 Doctor Who theme. This, I think, is perfect. Admittedly all instruments are now recognisably the work of an orchestra, but we have given that dramatic beat the oomph of real timpani, and we've made the swirl and flow of the orchestra capture the magic and mystery of 1963's synthesiser. This, I feel, nails the theme for a movie-style production.
Now in 2010 the same arranger, Russell Gold, has over-egged his own pudding. He has added too many layers of counter harmony (I don't know the correct term for unecessary twiddly bits) and buried the dramatic bassline to such an extent that, on first listening, I couldn't even follow it. I was listening a beat out of synch, and it wasn't until the melody came in that I knew where I was. So, for me, this a theme tune fail, and I hope by Christmas he brings in a new arrangement that recovers the greatness from the theme, without retreating too far.
Kev F 2010
Once upon a time it sounded like this: 1963 Dr Who credits. This is a marvellous piece of music, written by Ron Grainer (who also wrote Steptoe & Son and many more) and performed by Delia Derbyshire and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. It is the very epitomy of an enigmatic, mysterious signature tune for a drama. Even today no listener can be entirely sure how those notes are made. It sounds like no instrument that has ever existed, and indeed every note was unique to the show, being a mixture of recorded and manipulated sounds, "sampled" by Derbyshire in the most hands-on way. Using primitive, innovative synthesisers and recording equipment, and making up almost every technique they used as they went along, Delia and team produced noises that still sound other-worldly.
Grainer's tune has a simple dramatic bassline, sounding like it was conceived for timpani and double bass, which is then performed by some mechanical means which has qualities a bit like a bell made of rubber. Then in comes the melody, and no note is hit perfectly on time, each delayed or premature, as if they have been retrieved from outer space or crept into the back of your head. And what instrument does that sound like? In 2010 I'd struggle to make that noise given the breadth of technological gizmos hidden in my computer, but in 1963 what sound on earth had ever sounded like that? None, obviously.
That basic theme tune had some developments and, I'm not afraid to say, improvements over the years. By the 1970s it was crisp, clean, punchy, and had lost none of its mystery: Tom Baker credits 1974. And so it could have stayed.
The first lesson in missing the point with the Doctor Who theme tune came in the 1980s when, as well as losing its grip on the point of the show, someone decided to make the music sound thin, shallow, reedy, pathetic, and dated as soon as it was broadcast: 1987 Dr Who credits. Yuck. Not only is the logo so hideous even blind viewers complained, but the music has been re-performed, so precisely that you can almost see the fingers hitting the Casio keyboard, and with such a run-of-the-mill synthesiser sound that a kid in their bedroom could have made it. Worst of all, the bassline has been re-jigged, almost literally, so that you could dance a jig to it. Listen to this version and picture some English country dancers or pixies skipping along to it. How mysterious? None mysterious, that's how much. This was the theme tune of a TV show that deserved cancelling.
In 1996 the TV movie version took a classic film-themed approach to the Doctor Who theme, which turned it on its head. 1996 Who credits. Not at all bad, the music is being taken seriously, but there's a bit too much emphasis on the melody, we've lost the power of that dramatic bassline. If only, through the Marxist dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, we could end up with the perfect theme for the 21st century...
Ta-da! 2006 Doctor Who theme. This, I think, is perfect. Admittedly all instruments are now recognisably the work of an orchestra, but we have given that dramatic beat the oomph of real timpani, and we've made the swirl and flow of the orchestra capture the magic and mystery of 1963's synthesiser. This, I feel, nails the theme for a movie-style production.
Now in 2010 the same arranger, Russell Gold, has over-egged his own pudding. He has added too many layers of counter harmony (I don't know the correct term for unecessary twiddly bits) and buried the dramatic bassline to such an extent that, on first listening, I couldn't even follow it. I was listening a beat out of synch, and it wasn't until the melody came in that I knew where I was. So, for me, this a theme tune fail, and I hope by Christmas he brings in a new arrangement that recovers the greatness from the theme, without retreating too far.
Kev F 2010
Sunday, 4 April 2010
In praise of Doctor Who Eleventh Hour
Last night I watched Dr Who The Eleventh Hour on a hastily arranged TV in the venue I was about to perform my Socks show in. I loved it. Best 1st episode ever, I would contend.
An awful lot of plot to squeeze into an hour, and in many ways it was Moffat's most Russell T Davies-ish story. Big alien invasion, new companion, running round big villages rather than being in his usual claustrophic spaces, and a plot involving the entire world coming together to save the day. But unlike the similar RTD plots, all of Moffat's plotlines are resolved, all the questions are answered, and when you get the answer, you are satisfied.
I loved RTD, he revived Who, he constructed it as an engrossing soap opera that would draw in young, old, male and female viewers alike, and he found the best writers and allowed them to flourish. What I always had a problem with were elements of his writing which could be characterised by the phrase "Oh, that doesn't matter" or "they won't notice that" or even "I'll explain later."
Though some of my favourite Dr Who shows come from RTD and result from the unfettering of his brilliant imagination - Gridlock, Midnight, Turn Left and Love & Monsters are works of genius that no-one else could have come up with. And he was the master of The Moment, little exchanges between characters that you could watch 100 times (The Doctor and Rose discuss their future in The Impossible Planet, Rose & her Mum discuss Rose's future in Army Of Ghosts), or big page turner moments (I Am the Master, get out of the way, Barcelona, the lines are endless) or big impressive images (from The Face of Boe and the dozen aliens he squeezed into End Of The World's first crowd scene onwards) and cracking concepts that go beyond common sense in a good way (a while planet stuck in a traffic jam? an alien that's just some words repeated? The whole of history changed because you turn left instead of right?).
But it was RTD's plots, and the resolution thereof, that always frustrated me. A premise would be set up, an element introduced, a trap set, a puzzle raised, and then at the end of the episode it would either be forgotten, or solved in such a disappointing way as to make you feel the plot had been made up as it went along. From makey-uppey toys ranging from Anti-Plastic to Ozterhazen Keys, and of course the cure-all magic wand that was the Sonic Screwdriver and psychic paper, to plot elements that didn't even merit the word Maguffin (the worst being Donna, in the End Of Time, who mustn't remember anything at all, ever, or her head will explode destroying the entire universe, when in fact all that happens in the three people standing next to her fall over.)
RTD was also guilty of hitting the reset button and pretending that everything had never happened. The Master takes over the world, shoots the president, and it takes a whole year for Martha to get everyone to say the Dr's name, which somehow turns him into a god for a minute. Then the button is reset and we forget it all. The same in Journeys End where everyone pilots the Tardis home, a second Dr is sent off to another universe with Rose, and no-one remembers the planet moving. And once more with End Of Time, same schtick. Same memory schtick. It started to devalue the currency.
But with Moffat the opposite was the case. His plots are so tightly constructed that you could hit them with a hammer and they'd ring like a bell. Whether his characters and their relationships will prove so realistic, so captivating as RTD, is the test we await. Certainly last night he pulled on the heart strings with 7 year old Amelia, and delivered some killer relationship lines ("Why did you say five minutes?" being the best of a good bunch), killer comedy lines ("Beans are evil. Bad bad beans"), and a magnificent twist with the final shot of the episode. But are his characters in danger of becoming inhuman cyphers serving his plot? Let's see.
For now, I am so enjoying the plot so far, and its punched-up dramatic moments, that I'm happy. Watching the episode a second time I found moments I'd missed the first time, all of them good, none of them throwaway (I'd missed the point of the "look in the mirror" line when Amy has to be reminded she's in uniform, and forgotten the importance of the people Rory is photographing on his phone).
I am also the biggest fan of Moffat's use of reincorporation. He will introduce an element in the conversation, steer everything miles away from that idea until you've forgotten it, then bring it back to perfectly tie up the point that we started at. Good examples of reincorporation in 11th Hour are "must be a very scary crack in your wall", "Duck", the apple, and he'll trust the viewer to solve these little links in their own mind, secure in the knowledge that no random element appears in a Moffat plot without it having some purpose that will be revealed later. Why is Rory trying to show the other Dr in the hospital the photos on his phone? Why are the coma patients all calling for a Doctor? How many doors were there on the first floor when we first saw it? All good questions, all answered by the end.
And who didn't love seeing all 11 Doctors in one big on-screen montage? I believe the appropriate word to say at that moment is squeee. (And don't think we fans missed the significance of the Dr stealing his outfit from a hospital - again.)
"Now, basically, run!"
Keep it up, I'll be back for more next week.
An awful lot of plot to squeeze into an hour, and in many ways it was Moffat's most Russell T Davies-ish story. Big alien invasion, new companion, running round big villages rather than being in his usual claustrophic spaces, and a plot involving the entire world coming together to save the day. But unlike the similar RTD plots, all of Moffat's plotlines are resolved, all the questions are answered, and when you get the answer, you are satisfied.
I loved RTD, he revived Who, he constructed it as an engrossing soap opera that would draw in young, old, male and female viewers alike, and he found the best writers and allowed them to flourish. What I always had a problem with were elements of his writing which could be characterised by the phrase "Oh, that doesn't matter" or "they won't notice that" or even "I'll explain later."
Though some of my favourite Dr Who shows come from RTD and result from the unfettering of his brilliant imagination - Gridlock, Midnight, Turn Left and Love & Monsters are works of genius that no-one else could have come up with. And he was the master of The Moment, little exchanges between characters that you could watch 100 times (The Doctor and Rose discuss their future in The Impossible Planet, Rose & her Mum discuss Rose's future in Army Of Ghosts), or big page turner moments (I Am the Master, get out of the way, Barcelona, the lines are endless) or big impressive images (from The Face of Boe and the dozen aliens he squeezed into End Of The World's first crowd scene onwards) and cracking concepts that go beyond common sense in a good way (a while planet stuck in a traffic jam? an alien that's just some words repeated? The whole of history changed because you turn left instead of right?).
But it was RTD's plots, and the resolution thereof, that always frustrated me. A premise would be set up, an element introduced, a trap set, a puzzle raised, and then at the end of the episode it would either be forgotten, or solved in such a disappointing way as to make you feel the plot had been made up as it went along. From makey-uppey toys ranging from Anti-Plastic to Ozterhazen Keys, and of course the cure-all magic wand that was the Sonic Screwdriver and psychic paper, to plot elements that didn't even merit the word Maguffin (the worst being Donna, in the End Of Time, who mustn't remember anything at all, ever, or her head will explode destroying the entire universe, when in fact all that happens in the three people standing next to her fall over.)
RTD was also guilty of hitting the reset button and pretending that everything had never happened. The Master takes over the world, shoots the president, and it takes a whole year for Martha to get everyone to say the Dr's name, which somehow turns him into a god for a minute. Then the button is reset and we forget it all. The same in Journeys End where everyone pilots the Tardis home, a second Dr is sent off to another universe with Rose, and no-one remembers the planet moving. And once more with End Of Time, same schtick. Same memory schtick. It started to devalue the currency.
But with Moffat the opposite was the case. His plots are so tightly constructed that you could hit them with a hammer and they'd ring like a bell. Whether his characters and their relationships will prove so realistic, so captivating as RTD, is the test we await. Certainly last night he pulled on the heart strings with 7 year old Amelia, and delivered some killer relationship lines ("Why did you say five minutes?" being the best of a good bunch), killer comedy lines ("Beans are evil. Bad bad beans"), and a magnificent twist with the final shot of the episode. But are his characters in danger of becoming inhuman cyphers serving his plot? Let's see.
For now, I am so enjoying the plot so far, and its punched-up dramatic moments, that I'm happy. Watching the episode a second time I found moments I'd missed the first time, all of them good, none of them throwaway (I'd missed the point of the "look in the mirror" line when Amy has to be reminded she's in uniform, and forgotten the importance of the people Rory is photographing on his phone).
I am also the biggest fan of Moffat's use of reincorporation. He will introduce an element in the conversation, steer everything miles away from that idea until you've forgotten it, then bring it back to perfectly tie up the point that we started at. Good examples of reincorporation in 11th Hour are "must be a very scary crack in your wall", "Duck", the apple, and he'll trust the viewer to solve these little links in their own mind, secure in the knowledge that no random element appears in a Moffat plot without it having some purpose that will be revealed later. Why is Rory trying to show the other Dr in the hospital the photos on his phone? Why are the coma patients all calling for a Doctor? How many doors were there on the first floor when we first saw it? All good questions, all answered by the end.
And who didn't love seeing all 11 Doctors in one big on-screen montage? I believe the appropriate word to say at that moment is squeee. (And don't think we fans missed the significance of the Dr stealing his outfit from a hospital - again.)
"Now, basically, run!"
Keep it up, I'll be back for more next week.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Step Outside Posh Boy - Best Election Poster Ever
Though I have a dreadful feeling the tide is against them and that "my team" in the forthcoming election, Labour, may well lose purely by dint of being the incumbent for so long and through such crap times for politics and politicians, but if anything were to help them to victory, I'd love it to be this.
This billboard knocks spots off Labour's real election posters, which caricature Cameron as Gene Hunt from Life On Mars - talk about shooting yourself in the foot, who wouldn't vote for Gene Hunt? You idiots.
And this poster has the advantage of being a spoof, which means it can't be parodied, as has been the fate of the Tories "I've never voted Tory but.." campaign, which has also suffered from the fact that the best comedians are lefties. Sorry posh boys, but that remains the case. Not necessarily Labour supporters, in these days during which we've learned that no one in any party is above reproach and many representatives of the working class have proven themselves to be self serving greedy scavenging bastards, but generally speaking I would say it is the case the the Left has all the best comics, the Right being the side that produces reactionary and elderly comedy and comics.
I also love this poster because it spells out the class war that, for old lefties like me, still characterises Britain's politics. Even though Blair was a posh boy who sent us to an illegal war and is now as corrupt as a worm riddled orange corpse, underneath his new Labour veneer lay the same old team allegiances, and to a very great extent things have not changed. Posh kids born to privilege wield power over poor kids born to poverty, and that should always be challenged.
Also, Brown could so have Cameron. One head butt while posh boy's taking off his blazer, job done.
This billboard knocks spots off Labour's real election posters, which caricature Cameron as Gene Hunt from Life On Mars - talk about shooting yourself in the foot, who wouldn't vote for Gene Hunt? You idiots.
And this poster has the advantage of being a spoof, which means it can't be parodied, as has been the fate of the Tories "I've never voted Tory but.." campaign, which has also suffered from the fact that the best comedians are lefties. Sorry posh boys, but that remains the case. Not necessarily Labour supporters, in these days during which we've learned that no one in any party is above reproach and many representatives of the working class have proven themselves to be self serving greedy scavenging bastards, but generally speaking I would say it is the case the the Left has all the best comics, the Right being the side that produces reactionary and elderly comedy and comics.
I also love this poster because it spells out the class war that, for old lefties like me, still characterises Britain's politics. Even though Blair was a posh boy who sent us to an illegal war and is now as corrupt as a worm riddled orange corpse, underneath his new Labour veneer lay the same old team allegiances, and to a very great extent things have not changed. Posh kids born to privilege wield power over poor kids born to poverty, and that should always be challenged.
Also, Brown could so have Cameron. One head butt while posh boy's taking off his blazer, job done.
Friday, 2 April 2010
Kev F's Comic Art Masterclass comics by kids
More comics produced by classes in Kev F's Comic Art Masterclasses in the last month. They create the title and contribute to the cover, and inside there's a strip by every single one of them, and caricature of each of them by Kev F. Details at http://comicfestival.co.uk
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Brand new Socks t-shirt, available now. Limited edition.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are producing a BRAND NEW T-SHIRT for 2010 and you can be the first to get one.
This new shirt is based on the new design for their Edinburgh Fringe show, featuring the Socks in a Star Wars costume and an overcoat, carrying a light sabre and a newspaper with Socks headline on. It's a limited edition, unavailable anywhere else, and you must buy it in the next 7 days or miss out!
Buying this full colour shirt - available in all sizes - will help the Socks fund their new show, and this shirt will not be available anywhere else until August (ie not on cafepress.com, where you can still get the 2008 shirt design, in limited sizes).
Each shirt costs just £18 inc postage / $28US inc postage.
Simply pay by Paypal to sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk including the size you want and your full address.
Sizes are:
S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL Male
S, M, L Skinnyfit Female
Kids Age 1-2 2-3 3-4 5-6 7-8 9-11 12-13 14-15
All orders will be collated over the weekend of April 10th and despatched during the following week. Any queries, email sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk . Anyone wanting to bulk buy, ask about a discount for orders of more than 10 shirts (mixed sizes are easy).
This new shirt is based on the new design for their Edinburgh Fringe show, featuring the Socks in a Star Wars costume and an overcoat, carrying a light sabre and a newspaper with Socks headline on. It's a limited edition, unavailable anywhere else, and you must buy it in the next 7 days or miss out!
Buying this full colour shirt - available in all sizes - will help the Socks fund their new show, and this shirt will not be available anywhere else until August (ie not on cafepress.com, where you can still get the 2008 shirt design, in limited sizes).
Each shirt costs just £18 inc postage / $28US inc postage.
Simply pay by Paypal to sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk including the size you want and your full address.
Sizes are:
S, M, L, XL, XXL, XXXL Male
S, M, L Skinnyfit Female
Kids Age 1-2 2-3 3-4 5-6 7-8 9-11 12-13 14-15
All orders will be collated over the weekend of April 10th and despatched during the following week. Any queries, email sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk . Anyone wanting to bulk buy, ask about a discount for orders of more than 10 shirts (mixed sizes are easy).
Socks in Holland - a forgotten video gem
A forgotten classic from the attic, the Socks doing improv and an interview in Holland. All as part of the Big Mo Improv Show in The Hague, back in the day when we did the whole show naked. Enjoy.
Did we mention Tour Dates, Best Videos, Facebook Fan Club and Merchandise?
Did we mention Tour Dates, Best Videos, Facebook Fan Club and Merchandise?
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