Socks in Brighton - 2 new promo videos

You wait a year for a promo video for the Socks forthcoming shows at Komedia in Brighton on May 17 & 18 and, whaddayaknow, two come along at once. One slightly more Queen themed than the other. Watch them both, they're not long.

Socks in Brighton - very Queeny.
Socks in Brighton - less Queeny.

And as if that weren't enough, on the promotional video for forthcoming gigs front...

All go. No seriously, all go. To Brighton first, and Bognor a new weeks later. You know it makes sense.





The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
May 9 - Exeter Barnfield
May 14 - Camden Head, London 
May 17 - Brighton Komedia
May 23 - Keighley Exchange
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London 
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show) 
July 4 - Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham
July 9 - Bedford Fringe 
July 11 - Beverley Puppet Festival 
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
July 23 - Taurus Manchester
July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm - Edinburgh Fringe 2014

10 Yet More Bananaman Versions You Can't Unsee

You wait years for a Top Ten rundown of unusual Bananaman pictures to appear, then three come along at once. So having posted this list here, then this list here, here comes a third selection of Bananaman-as-you-never-saw-him-before images I've found.

10 - The Dark Bananaman. Drawn by Paul Cemmick in this month's SFX Magazine, picking up on the news that there's a Bananaman movie in the pipeline. Via @bromley001

9 - Savage Chickens' Bananaman. From the fantastic comic strip series, drawn on sticky notes by Doug Savage, a brilliant twist to a familiar tale. via Patrick Brown on Facebook.

8 - A Bananaman Nando's Finger Selfie. No, I didn't know there was such a thing as any of those things, but there is, and this is one by @MikeyCoughlan via @NandosUK

7 - Bananaman watches AFC Bournemouth. With his bezzie mate The Flash. He has to do something at weekends. via @afcbournemouth

6 - The Goodies ARE Bananaman. A lovely photo find by @RobertWRoss on Twitter, it's Tim, Bill & Graeme providing the voices for the 1980s Bananaman cartoon. Coincidentally the Goodies make a sneak guest appearance in this week's Beano.

5 - The Bat and The Banana. By the excellent Dan McDaid, whose work you might know from  Doctor Who magazine and elsewhere. Shark Infested Custard, of which you don't see nearly enough these days.

4 - The Banana Phone. How else do you summon The Man Of Peel? via @CuriousSatan

3 - People dressed as Bananaman. My God there's thousands of them. Here's just a handful from @HelenAndDouglas (for #SuperHeroFriday! #childrenshospiceweek), @A5shley, @yayburpees (for #burpeeyear), @MrLeeBrennan, @BHASnappy (for #BHAFC), and @FunStarsGoLive (for #HappyValley).

2 - Banana Boy, Banana Girl and, er, Banana Warrior of the Fruit Defenders. Studiously avoiding any names that may already have been taken, these characters are copyright & ™ Osprey Product Development.



1 - Miracle Banana. One part Bananaman, one part Miracle Man, all parts me and Wayne Thompson from The Beano earlier this year. Hopefully he returns soon, keep your eyes peeled comic book satire fans.



Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.

The UKIP Song - new from the Scottish Falsetto Socks

Brand new from the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, with apologies to Lennon & McCartney, a wee song about an inexplicably popular political party. It would be a delight if, a few years from now, nobody had any idea what this song is about. Click to play.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre ...And So Am I runs from July 30 - August 22 2014 at 10.30pm in The Gilded Balloon at The Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets are on sale already. 



The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
May 9 - Exeter Barnfield
May 14 - Camden Head, London 
May 17 - Brighton Komedia
May 23 - Keighley Exchange
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London 
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show) 
July 4 - Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham
July 9 - Bedford Fringe 
July 11 - Beverley Puppet Festival 
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
July 23 - Taurus Manchester
July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm - Edinburgh Fringe 2014

May in the Socks calendar - Damian Hirst

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's 2014 calendar is on the theme of modern art and June's page sees the boys taking on the Middle Aged British Artist Damian Hirst.

The calendar is on sale through Lulu.com at a devilishly reasonable price and is a joy to see and a marvel to treasure.

To see all 12 entries, plus the front cover, click and look at the free preview of the calendar. And you can see 2012 and 2013's calendar (cult icons and sci-fi respectively) on the website.



The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London 
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show) 
July 4 - Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham
July 9 - Bedford Fringe 
July 11 - Beverley Puppet Festival 
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
July 23 - Taurus Manchester
July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm - Edinburgh Fringe 2014

The Goodies in this week's Beano

Thanks to cracking writer and artist Stu Munro, this week's Beano features the return, after four decades in the wilderness, of the comic strip adventures of The Goodies. Okay, they're subtly smuggled-in lookalikes of the guys who provided the voices for TV's Bananaman cartoon, but they're instantly recognisable to anyone who a) is as old as me and was raised on the TV show & Cor!! comic, or b) is Australian where they've never stopped repeating The Goodies, so they're not as woefully forgotten as they are over here. Bonus marks to Stu for finding the Goodies original typeface too (more recently used by Harry Hill). Here's a taste of Joe Colquhoun's original Goodies strip for Cor!! back in 1973:

For anyone too hopelessly young to still not know what we're talking about, The Goodies were Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, three Cambridge Footlighters whose BBC2 surreal sitcom (so surreal some TV historians forget it was even a sitcom and list it under sketch shows) ran from 1970 to 1979, with a brief less successful run on ITV afterwards.

As well as being TV comedy stars, they were successful recording artists appearing on Top Of The Pops and having chart hits with such singles as The Funky Gibbon, Nappy Love, Black Pudding Bertha and Make A Daft Noise For Christmas. Their weekly strip in Cor!! comic was drawn by Joe Colquhoun, artist of Charley's War and Roy Of The Rovers, and ran from 1973 to 74 (you can see examples here on the Goodies Rule OK website).

I am indebted to a marvellous blog called Kazoop for the image below and for the following information (do please check out the blog, it's full of gems): "licensed for just the one year, The Goodies were unique in the fact they were the only adapted characters featured with the comic's pages with copyright credit being given to Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden. According to Robert Ross' book "The Complete Goodies" the strips were all authorised and approved by The Goodies prior to publication and Tim still displays an original Cor!! strip in his study”.





Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

Dr Strange and more in this week's Beano

A bumper bundle of my stuff in an excellent Beano this week. In Bananaman I've smuggled in a Doctor Strange lookalike and a not-quite Doctor Octopus - and Wayne has very niftily snuck my name in the background as you can see. And as if that weren't enough, the fantastic Hunt Emerson has drawn my Little Plum strip Damon The Shaman, and credited me kindly on the artwork, and my Pansy Potter strip Mrs McGleish's Pussy is in there, with my name hidden in the background, can you spot it readers?

It's the first time I've worked on Doctor Strange in a comic (however obliquely) since I used to ink the actual Marvel comic back in the 90s. Why I even got to pencil it, over Mark Buckingham's layouts, for a couple of issues. I must tell you all about it some day. Wait, stop, where are you all going?

And as if all that weren't enough, this week's Beano features the first appearance in a comic for over 40 years of my favourite comedy triple-act of all time! Who could they be? Well, if I were to suggest you take a bit of good advice, try a trip to paradise, it's not hard to find you've got it on your mind, you can't pretend it wouldn't be nice.... (the answer is..?)

Update, the full original script for Doctor Squid:

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.

EE by gum - my fun with phones

 
11.30am.  I have just been told I cannot migrate my old T-Mobile phone number to my new iPhone except at the point of sale, which was two weeks ago. That cannot be right!
In EE chat just now it went:

EE: you cannot port a number from T-Mobile to EE. To do this would need to via Migration & this can only be done directly via EE

Me: You are EE

EE: You can call 150 but I assure you that only the migration will allow you to obtain the number. (this may be the reason as to why you have not had the number transferred up to now).

Me: So how do I Migrate?

EE: The only way for you to obtain that number now is to port out to another network & then port back in via the EE.
You can only migrate at the point of sale

Me: So I cannot migrate after I've bought the phone?????????????????????????????????????????????

EE: That's correct.

Me: So I have to take this phone back? Or lose my number that I've had since 1998?

EE: You would need to discuss with Apple to confirm if this is possible.

Me: Bloody hell.

EE: Kev.....please bear in mind that this was you that chosen to visit the Apple Store

I've since spoken to Apple who say they can't help and have sent me back to EE. What can I do?


UPDATE (12.10pm): I spoke to EE on the phone and they have just told me the phone number is going to be transferred. Sometime in the next 12 hours it will happen. All I need to do is, er, "turn it off and on again" and wait. Thankyou EE (if it works).

UPDATE (12.18pm): YES! Thankyou EE! You have just migrated my phone number from my old T-Mobile to my new EE iPhone! Hooray! You are smashing. Bringing new meaning to the phrase "under-promise and over-deliver" you spent an hour telling me how you couldn't do it, then you did it! Thankyou again.

UPDATE May 3rd: I text EE asking "@EE Why would I have just got a text from 7626 saying "You've used up your data, buy more for as little as £1.99" when I haven't? In fact @EE .co.uk says I still have 4GB left, out of my 4GB allowance, after two weeks solid use. Can that also be true? Who is "7626"?  They reply:  "Some data texts were sent in error, as long as you check online using My EE this will show the correct data amount." Hmmmm.