Quad posters and Harrow preview

I think it's been 10 years since I paid to have posters displayed on the streets of Edinburgh during the Fringe. Way back in 2007 there was a company called Diabolical Liberties who did it. We celebrated them in song in fact. (With a video that's not aged well...)



Back then it was the last days of flyposting when, as we say in the song, "a man with a bucket and a big fat brush" would stick your posters on any available surface. This was, obviously, rather destructive to the look of Edinburgh, and you'd find remnants of many of these posters clinging to their various surfaces when you returned a year later.

So it was that the council and the venues and promoters got together and got the distribution of posters officially licensed, and every year since it's got a bit more professional, and a bit more expensive. Ten years ago I paid £250 to get (I think) 100 A2 posters flyposted all over Edinburgh. This year I decided to dip my toe in the water and found, for £150, I could afford to have two posters put up. They are, it has to be said, quite big (Quad size, which is 30" x 40") and printed on thick vinyl, and attached properly to specially erected stands. But, blimey, the amount some companies are paying for posters is mind boggling. I'm perfectly aware that my tiny drop in the ocean will go unseen among the millions, but if they put 15 and a half bums on seats, then they've justified their investment. (That's fiftenn bums and one buttock, and don't think I won't be counting).

Oh yeah, and we did another Preview of Superheroes, and it went brilliantly. Too soon to be getting cocky, but I think, short of a few nips and tucks, we have the show that we'll be keeping. We were on at the Trinity Bar in Harrow, and many thanks to Alison Kent for putting this on. We didn't get a big audience - this being the hottest summer for years, and most people being more interested in football than going to comedy shows - but the dozen or so in the room gave us a marvellous reception, and a perfect test of our stuff. There were only two people who'd seen us before, and so we won over a handful of strangers then really made them laugh with all Superheroes and no fallback stuff.

The running order is now:

SUPERHEROES RUNNING ORDER, Thurs July 5 2018

(All items good as before unless mentioned)

Opening Batman/Ditko/Flash 

I’m A Sock song

Cosmopolitan / Bob Kane

NEW - Wonderful World song - Perfect! Why hasn't this been in the show all along?

Motion Capture

Scottish Superheroes

Hulk Ang Lee

Plot/ Maguffin 

Batman/ Teeth / etc

Bechdel Test song 

NEW - Joker calls Harley & Ivy - good, works

Cock Robin 

Science/Faraday/Sagan

Helium routine 

Brother 1

Racist Brother song

Avengers

Avengers Reel 

Dr Strange / Wong / Thanos

Wonder Woman routine 

Fantastic 4 

Superman / JorEl / Kents / Glasses

Dead Ringer song

Brother 2

Science 2

Joker 2 

Harley & Ivy

Brother 3 - now shorter

What I’ve Learned - now shorter

All By Myself song 

NEW Finale -  with extra Thanos, even better.

The show came to about an hour & ten minutes last night, with a lot of audience play (we adlibbed Saltire Man from audience suggestion and had some good banter) so we can lose a lot still. If anything it's the Brother subplot that's now not as funny as the superhero material, which is pretty much the opposite of where we were back in March. I'll just keep trimming as we go, and hopefully the adlibs and banter will bed in while the structure stays the same. Well done us. (Cue the next preview being horrible and me wanting to rewrite the whole thing. Wouldn't be the first time.)

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018

Previews:July 11 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One
July 29 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern

Aug 1 - 26 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

New Socks Superheroes t shirt - available now

Here it is at last, the 2018 Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre: SUPERHEROES Official t-shirt and it can be yours now! Ready to post now! Am I using too many exclamation marks?!?

It's our traditional black t shirt, available in Small, Medium, Large, XL, XXL, and Female Medium, bearing the new Socks Superheroes roundel (detail below, clearly fake shirt in photo above)

To order one, simply pay £20 (UK) /$30 (to USA) by Paypal to sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk including in your order the size you want and your full address. A shirt will be yours by return.

The print run has been made, so sizes are limited to the ones shown above (thanks to those who pre-ordered kids sizes and super-duper-large shirts, those are now sadly out of stock). In Edinburgh the shirts will be £15 each direct from me (ie postage free).

Thanks in anticipation for your orders. Love The Socks.

NB: Postage. Two shirts are £35 / $50 inc postage, three shirts are £52 / $75 inc postage, four shirts are £70 / $100 inc postage.

Here's the actual shirt itself (though this time it's the Socks that are fake):

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018

Previews:

July 5 - Trinity Bar Harrow

July 11 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One
July 29 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern

Aug 1 - 26 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Celery & Constipation - comics and flipcharts by kids

June has been the quietest month of the year for my Comic Art Masterclasses, being the height of exam season and with no Bank Holidays or half terms to fill. But inbetween working hard at my desk producing the Socks comic and finalising the show, I've managed a few days at the chalkface. These two examples are from Dean Close School in Cheltenham.

It was a long hot six and a half hour drive to Felixstowe for these two classes, but well worth it they were. Thanks to the Felixstowe Book Festival for laying on these sessions at the library.

This month saw a couple of events where I was invited to give a talk, but not to do the full class. So on both these occasions - at Croome House in Worcestershire, and a park in Maidenhead - I had lots of spare time on my hands in which to turn out a nice page of flipchart for them to keep. The examples above are from Croome, which was Beano themed as you can tell, and Dean Close school where my classes had a late start cos the kids had to get their innoculations. The one below was Maidenhead's flipchart.

At Ludlow Fringe I did one class on the afternoon ahead of doing the Socks show in the evening, and here's what they produced.

The celebrities these 5 groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Kim Jong Un, David Attenborough, Donald Trump (twice), and Tom Holland. PLUS - an added bonus - I did three talks (in Maidenhead and Croome) which didn't involve making a comic but did involve the demo strip, for which those three groups chose Simon Cowell, David Walliams, and Mary Berry.



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. 

Superheroes Flyer & Poster designed at last

At long last, and much later then in previous years, I've got the new flyers and posters artworked for our Edinburgh show. 2015's were completed in the April of that year (according to this blog, which shows all the previous flyers going back to 2007), but this year I've somehow not got round to it till now. (2016's flyer doesn't get blogged till August, so maybe I've not been so tardy this year after all). I'm particularly pleased with the back of the flyer.

The artwork, which I coloured specially, is from the splash page of the Socks Superheroes comic, which will be on sale at the Fringe, I hope (I'm sitting on nearly 500 copies, so we'd better start shifting them soon). Whether its resemblance to the Infinity War poster has retained any currency I don't know, but I think it represents the show well and should be fun to hand out at the rate of 300 a day.

I'd been struggling with the poster, trying to make it look more exciting and superheroic without cluttering it. I have a variety of other socks cartoon figures to use, but it became too busy when I stuck them in. So I went with lightning, which seems to have done the trick.


I've put in a bid for a big A1 poster outside the venue, though they're reserving those spaces for the shows in bigger rooms than me. Still, it would be great if I could have one and artwork a character-filled border to go with it. Let's see.

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018

Previews:

July 5 - Trinity Bar Harrow

July 11 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One
July 29 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern

Aug 1 - 26 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Chortle Perfect Playlist by The Socks

Perfect Playlist

Here comedians choose half-a-dozen or so of their favourite comedy moments, illustrated with clips. Whether it's just the things that make them laugh or important influences on their careers, these selections reveal what makes their comedy brains tick.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre pick their perfect playlist from their favourite comedy double acts.

It’s our tenth year doing a brand new show at the Edinburgh Fringe, so it’s about time we fessed up and revealed the comedy acts off whom we ripped our act. Though every line we write is sparklingly original and fresh from our hard-working comedy brains, it’s hard to help noticing all these other acts who, spookily, did most of our schtick first.

Bob & Terry, The Likely Lads

You know that routine the Socks do in every show where one of us mishears a word the other one’s said and it spirals through a series of similar misunderstandings to a hilarious conclusion? Yes you do. Oh come on, we’ve done it in every bloody show. Well, it turns out (we find, having seen it repeated on Yesterday) we totally lifted that from Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads. Also the whole Aspirational One v Complacent One schtick. Thanks Clements & LaFrenais.



Peter Cook & Dudley Moore

There’s no shame in admitting you’re wallowing in the shadow of two of the most respected comedians in history. Although what we took from Pete & Dud wasn’t the sparkling wit or the accomplished piano playing. It was what Cook called Happy Amateurism, which was his excuse for being an alcoholic and our excuse for perennial underachievement. And corpsing. We took that from them too.



Peter Glaze & Don Maclean

History has largely forgotten this pair, who live on only in the memory of people of a certain age. They were the comedy stars of Crackerjack, on children’s BBC from the mid 70s to the early 80s, by which time Glaze, who had been a member of The Crazy Gang in the 50s, was already one of the oldest people I’d ever seen on the telly. He’s the guy who coined “D’oh”, which sadly Homer Simpson went on to own. As a double act they perfected the Cheeky One constantly getting the rise out of the Uptight One, and Crackerjack ended every week with a musical parody. Sometimes they changed the lyrics, but the songs were at their most satisfactory when they just sang them straight. I say straight…



The Two Ronnies

Gerald Wiley, aka Ronnie Barker, may be the single most influential writer on our work. He did word play which may have become unfashionable in subsequent years but stands the test of time, and did the best Putting Words To Other Peoples Songs there is.




National Theatre Of Brent

Why doesn’t everyone know the National Theatre Of Brent? Now riding high on the success of The 39 Steps, Patrick Barlow’s Desmond Olivier Dingle was the ultimate Uptight Guy Who’s Trying To Put On A Play. And Jim Broadbent, now way famouser than Patrick Barlow in a way that nobody would have predicted back the the National Theatre Of Brent’s heyday, was the best Dopey Sidekick ever. “Might ine ask” is a phrase still used regularly in our home. If you’ve never seen the NTOB, that will mean nothing to you. On the plus side, though, you’ll think the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre totally invented our way of doing Shakespeare parodies and historic re-enactions.



Mr Show with Bob & Dave

Mr Show wasn’t, strictly, an influence on The Socks because, to be honest, we’d been going for five years before we even knew it existed. But it pre-dates us, so it counts. And has some of the most out-of-the-box original double-act sketch work we’ve ever seen.



Abbott & Costello

If there had never been a Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre then history would have to settle for these guys. I mean, contrived word play? Histrionic over acting in a high pitched voice? A straight guy who never gets a laugh? It’s okay. We’re here now, you never have to watch these guys ever ag - Third Base!

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018

Previews:

July 5 - Trinity Bar Harrow

July 11 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One
July 29 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern

Aug 1 - 26 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Bechdel Test - new from the Socks

Brand new from the Socks, two superheroes try and pass The Bechdel Test. Enjoy.

This sketch hasn't made it into the show, though the song that goes with it has. Stay tuned for that if you see the show live, or when it makes its way online after the show's had its time in Edinburgh. This is a lovely bit of fun and I do hope people like it.

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018

Previews:

July 5 - Trinity Bar Harrow

July 11 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One
July 29 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern

Aug 1 - 26 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Thor & Odin - new from the Socks

Brand new video from The Socks' Superheroes playlist, Thor and Odin. Enjoy.

This is a gag that I first did in one of my comic strips, in something like UT, Gag, Blag, Gas or some such comic of the time, at least 25 years ago, so I'm making no claims for novelty here. But I've always liked the gag and, though it's not made it into the show, it works well as a short video. If only more people watched these things than come and see us live, eh?

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

*Winners of the Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Best Joke Award 2018

Previews:

July 5 - Trinity Bar Harrow

July 11 - Neath Comedy Festival

July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One
July 29 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern

Aug 1 - 26 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe