Flatlining - Is this the year that Flyering stopped working?

Look at that graph. Isn't that the most miserable thing you ever saw? Probably not, cos it's not your show. But having had to cancel two shows (for family reasons, going to England for 2 days) my sales line temporarily nosedived as people got their money back. And then today's uptick? Well, it simply doesn't compare with previous years.

Could this be the year when flyering stopped working?

When I took my first show to the Edinburgh Fringe, The Sitcom Trials way back in 2001, I discovered how flyering worked. More precisely I discovered that flyering did work.

It was a revelation to me to find the streets were full of punters, all in town in order to see shows, and all you had to do was persuade them that yours was the show they wanted. That year’s show had a breakeven of 30 punters per day, and I found that three hours of flyering would bring in the said thirty bums on seats.

This became known, if only by me, as Kev F’s Theory Of Flyering. 3 hours of flyering equalled 30 bums on seats. As recently as 2015 I tested it out under laboratory conditions (okay, I recorded a couple of days flyering and leaped to some vague conclusions), and it seemed that the theory still held true.

That very first flyer, from 2001. (An overstickered version, cos we had lots left over. That year I also discovered you only need 10,000 flyers, and I'd printed 25,000.)

I also demonstrated how not flyering would lower sales when, in 2002 and 2012, I made the same mistake twice. I did two shows a day. And, since I have always been single-handedly responsible for my own promotion, I was able to do half as much flyering per show and, lo, each show sold half as well as previously.

But this year I’m struggling. Today, for example, I’ve done nearly four hours of flyering and my sales for tonight - on 2 for 1 day, which I’ve sold out almost every year - are stuck on 53 (a sellout being 90). They were 53 before I’d given out a single flyer and they’re fifty bloody three after two bursts of pretty bloody good flyering.

My technique remains the best. Everyone gets The Snap, they get the smile, they get a witty sales line (be it “this is what you’re looking for”, “they’re on at 10.30”, “they’re selling out but you might squeeze in tonight” etc), and they take the flyer. More people take my flyers than take anyone else’s flyers. I see it all day every day, and it’s been a source of pride for the last 18 years.

Except that in all those previous years the proof of the pudding was in the eating, and this year it’s not. The flyers aren’t turning into ticket sales.

Maybe it’s my mood - I am exhausted with the cold, and with having to cancel two shows to go down and see Mum, and the whole Mum situation is obviously very depressing - but I feel like I’ve never before encountered so many resistant punters. The Royal Mile has always been a bit of a waste of time, with such a high proportion of tourists being Tattooies and day-trippers, who don’t even know the Fringe exists and have no intention of going to any show of any sort even if they did. There have always been lots of Tattooies, but their lot was usually leavened by the Fringegoers who would coalesce around the Fringe Office box office queue. That queue is now a distant memory.

The Fringe box office queue on the High Street, as it appeared in the halcyon days of 2010

With the growth of online ticket buying, and the profusion of cross-venue box offices (for example the Underbelly, Gilded Balloon, Pleasance & Assembly all sell each others tickets), there is now no reason for the queue at the Fringe Office to be a focus any more. It used to be the greatest place to flyer. A few years ago, when everyone started flyering the queue (something which had once being the province of a small few of us) the stewards cracked down on it. But you could always spot the likely punters on their way there. Now you can’t.

My flyering strip of choice is the stretch around the Gilded Balloon, where there is a healthy flow of punters. But two factors have made that less effective year on year. One is the profusion of other flyerers - there are more than I have ever seen along that stretch. The other is the resistant punters. I feel like I have been told “no thanks” more than ever. There are more people going past who have already bought their tickets for another show, or aren’t going to any shows anywhere.

I have a feeling that more people have decided what they’re going to see before they get here - as recorded last week, I had near-record high pre-sales before we arrived in Edinburgh - and they’re less susceptible to being whipped into my show by me and my bits of cardboard. Could it be that the battle is won, by all those shows with big agencies whose PRs have got them coverage in the national press months ago, long before August starts? I also have paranoid doubts that people may be looking at the flyer and thinking it’s a kids show (I was warned against having cartoons on the flyer for this very reason, back in the spring). Or am I simply losing the race to other more attractive acts? Sorry, it’s possible to get very maudlin and introspective when you let Edinburgh get to you, and it rather looks like I’ve let it get to me this week. (And my god is there anything more depressing than a Sold Out board that’s packed with act after act, and you’re not on it? I’m making myself more miserable by thinking these things out loud).

I will continue with my tried and tested method of old. But if my experience of this past few days continues, and I am incapable of getting good sized audiences into my room on a regular basis, then I will have to reconsider this promotional method in future. Let’s be honest, I’m not getting any younger and it’s knackering!

Oh yes, and those bloody posters that I paid extra for have done bugger all. I haven't even seen the damn things yet! Mental note: Do not spend money on big posters in future.

(It’s an hour later than when I started this blog. I check back on my sales. It’s 8.35pm and they’ve crept up to… 53)

UPDATE: In the end, sales of Monday's show ended up at 63*, after two minutes of last minute "they start soon" flyering. Could it be that was the most effective flyering of the day?

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th (not Aug 8 & 9)

*PS For the record we sold fewer on the first Monday in 07, 08 and 09, but this was our worst result since then. Tuesday, also a 2-for-1 day, currently stands at 54. Let's have another go shall we? (To be continued)

Colds, clogged drains, and cancellations - a tough first week

This has been an unexpectedly challenging first week at the Fringe. Definitely the most problematic week since 2009 (when we woke up to an early phone call from home telling us our flat had been entirely flooded out by a leak from upstairs, a disaster that took till the end of the year to repair, and which we’ve never quite got over). So far no ceilings have fallen in, as far as we know, but if they were to, this would be the year they’d choose to do it.

We started with Hev having a severe allergic reaction to whatever she ate on the journey up, or on the first day here. Her throat was swollen and she was shivering and shuddering in the most worrying way. Calls to NHS Direct and visits to pharmacists found us Piriton, Kalms, and various things that are helping in a small way, but we still have ongoing problems with what Hev can eat these days. She’s worried one of the things she could be allergic to is sunflowers - having bought some to decorate the flat, and cooked our first meal in sunflower oil rather than our usual extra virgin - so I had to take the clutch of sunflowers out of the flat and resdistribute them. You’ll probably still spot a few in odd places around the Royal Mile/St Marys Street area (hence the photo above).

Talking of changing the subject, the plumbing was blocked so we had to get a man in. When we arrived in the flat it had a pooey smell emanating from the kitchen, which cleared up after a bit of use. But then we found the sink wouldn’t drain, and when the washing machine emptied, it emptied up through the sink. I found myself scooping buckets of water from the filling sink and chucking them out of the window. Luckily it’s been raining for the first three days we’ve been here, so nobody noticed. A quick visit by the plumber sorted that one.

Then on day two of my show I’ve managed to get a cold, The Edinburgh Cold. I could feel it burning around the back of my throat on Thursday and on Friday I was fully colded-up and in danger of losing my voice. By taking it easy on the flyering* - which I can’t do silently,  try as I might - and by treating my throat carefully and doing warming up exercises in the falsetto voice all the way to performance time, I got through and had a great show on Friday (day 3).

Saturday was always going to be harder for the voice because, during the day, I’d lined up a Comic Art Masterclass at Meadowbank Library near Falkirk. I did that, and it went well, but I could feel the toll being taken on the voice. Never forgetting that date last year at the Bill Murray where I had to cancel the gig - first time ever - I knew I had to avoid over-exertion or I could totally wipe out my performing voice. But it was Saturday, and if I didn’t flyer hard I wasn’t going to get a sellout. We always get a sellout on the first Saturday, without fail**.

Reader, this year we failed. I simply couldn’t spend as many hours flyering as was needed (I did about two and a half hours in all), and critically I couldn’t do the hour in the run up to the show, when I usually breeze round the tables in the bar outside the venue reminding everyone that our show’s starting soon. That always whips up a good few stragglers, but it also uses the wrong part of my voice box. And from 7.30 till the start of my show at 10.30 I was having to speak, or try to, entirely in the falsetto voice.

I say speak. At 7.30 I had only a whisper coming out, and my falsetto voice was a wheezy croak. Never before have I had to coax a voice out from such an unpromising start. But by golly I did it, and am pretty bloody proud of myself. Our audience may have been our lowest first Saturday since 2013**, but the voice held up throughout. During the show The Socks didn’t even mention the lost voice situation, which we had done the previous night, and the audience were none the wiser and had a great show. I think there were reviewers in that night. So, if they give us poor reviews, and we drop down a star or two, I’ll just be able to smile silently to myself in the knowledge that they were watching an act that, three hours earlier, had no bloody voice. So there.

(At time of typing, 8.30 Sunday morning, I have no voice again, having done nothing more than whisper so far. And, of course, the cold has moved on to the tickly cough stage. So let us look forward to a repeat performance of the threatened performance again tonight).

So we’ve had colds, we’ve had clogs, but now, for the first time we have cancellations.

For the first time ever at the Fringe I’m cancelling shows, on Wednesday and Thursday, because I have to fly down to England to see Mum. She’s been deteriorating over recent weeks and at the end of the week had another of a succession of falls which has meant her going into hospital and realising she’s not going to be going back home. As she said, when we spoke on the phone on Saturday morning, “it’s time to put our plans into operation”. So, though hopefully she could have a long time ahead of her, she wants to see us and get her affairs in order while she’s still compos mentis (the cancer now having spread to her brain) and that’s what I’ll be doing in the middle of the week. Jude, who’s been on holiday in Spain for the last two weeks, has been dealing with more of it than I have, long distance, and goes to see Mum today (Sunday). 

Obviously the Mum situation hangs over everything, and has been the biggest concern, with Jude, Hev and I knowing we couldn’t have picked worse times to be in other countries. But it couldn’t be helped. I’m glad I was able to visit Mum in Kibworth last week (blimey, it was literally only seven days ago, it feels like an age) and help her in the small ways I could. Let’s see what else I can do this week. Two shows cancelled, but hopefully the punters will come on another day (there are also 4 comps issued on those days, which are bound to be reviewers, fingers crossed they’ll reschedule), and I’ve had to cancel, or hopefully move, a comic class too.

Doing the Edinburgh Fringe makes us all a bit self-obsessed, so I apologise for this maudlin indulgent screed when so many people have so many worse problems going on in their lives. As it is, we’re both quite cheerful up here, and the Socks have been having great shows with fabulous audiences. Onwards and upwards, it’s Sunday and I need to sprook tonight’s show for all I’m worth.

The Award Winning* Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th (not Aug 8 & 9)

* I’m writing this blog on a Stickie, which has an infuriating spell-check. It won’t accept the word flyering and keeps changing it. So, as far as it’s concerned, I’ve been flying down the Royal Mile all week. It’s also changed pooey to pokey, and colded-up to folded-up, which is something I haven’t been. Yet.

** Legend, and poor memory, told me we always sellout the first weekend. In fact we only did that in 2010. We had sellout first Fridays on 09, 10, 12, 13, 14 & 15, but only sold out the Saturday in 09, 10 and very nearly in 16. Last night in fact equalled 2013’s Socks In Space and was two tickets short of 2015’s Minging Detectives. So maybe I didn’t have to worry about my grossly negligent under-flyering after all.

Edinburgh cold? Already? (Day 3)

There is a legendary disease they speak of in the ancient annals of that mysterious ceremony called the Edinburgh Fringe, known as The Edinburgh Cold.

With mind-numbing inevitability, a host of comedians - who have spent every night breathing the air of 50 or more strange people in a hot, humid, airless room, and shaking hands, air-kissing and giving each other bear hugs in the streets, at launch parties, and into the early hours in equally packed bars, and, in some cases, handing hundreds of flyers out to the great unwashed on the streets of the city - are suddenly surprised to find they’ve picked up some germs.

Dear reader, I am among that number.

Because of my religious regime of consuming slices of raw garlic washed down with orange juice every day, I seek normally to protect myself from this ailment. But by midday Thursday - Day 2 of my show - I had a sore throat and realised I had succumbed to something. 

I managed the second night of my show fine, though they were a funny crowd who seemed not to get a lot of gags, and who laughed most at things like the bloke in the back row who kept shouting out the names of random superheroes (to be honest that was very funny, but it slightly derailed the rest of the hour. We finished on time though, so the day’s editing had paid off in shortening the show).

This morning, Friday aka Day 3, I wake to find the Socks Voice is currently frayed. It has a reedy, two-pronged sound to it, which is not a good thing. I will have to spend the day nursing that voice and being kind to myself. That or we’ll be doing our first Friday night show as a mime.

It could be worse, I could be doing a Comic Art Masterclass in the daytime tomorrow as well as hoping for a sellout show that night. 

In other news, at yesterday’s Gilded Balloon launch party I learned that the reason there aren’t so many big name TV comedians at Edinburgh this year is that they’ve all been playing at the Just For Laughs Festival. They have, apparently, been going there because that’s where Netflix are going to shop for talent, and they’re not coming to Edinburgh. So if you’re angling for a TV special, you do a week in Canada instead of a month in Edinburgh. Where the biggest thing you’re going to pick up is strep throat.

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

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

Fab first night in rainy Edinburgh

Here, in the window of the Gilded Balloon shop, we have the Socks' merchandise on sale. The Socks comic and t-shirts are waiting for the punters to snap them up, another first time venture for us. For reasons I can't fathom, I've never got our shirts into the shop before, only ever managing to sell them face to face. Well now you can buy them when you pick up your tickets, and I hope you all do.

The Socks' first night was a stonker, though we come away with one big lesson - the show's too long. Again. This happens every year. We write an hour long show, getting it down to approximately 60 minutes in previews, then it grows in Edinburgh, with audience laughter and ad libs, meaning we need to trim it. A good 5 minutes has to go from the current show. On our opening night we'd reached the 59 minute mark and hadn't even sung the final "reuniting" song, let alone done the finale. If it's any consolation, first night audience, the finale's not the best bit of the show, but we feel you were robbed. So, today some judicious trimming is underway.

Before our own show, The Socks made an appearance at Chortle's Fast Fringe, which was excellent. We were the 9th act on a bill of a dozen acts, each doing 3 minutes, and for the first half of the show the audience was taking a lot of warming up. It's a difficult show to keep the momentum going in, with such a variety of acts coming on an such breakneck speed. But by the time we came on they were more than ready and we absolutely killed.

We were blessed with a lovely bit of audience interaction.

Right Sock: Name a superhero, they might be in the show
Punter: Superman
Right Sock: Or they might not
(Audience laughter)
Punter (repeats): Superman
Right Sock: No, we heard you. I don't know if you saw, we just did a gag that some might call witty, even ironic, based on the fact that we'd heard you and the audience heard us hearing you. By saying 'Superman' again you are, if anything, wasting time that we can't spare in this Three Minute Slot!

It doesn't read like anything, and the words will have been slightly different, but the timing was lovely and got great laughs from the knowledge that we were wasting a bit of our 3 minute slot talking about how we were wasting a bit of our 3 minute slot. Ah, you had to be there.

We then gave them Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, which went brilliantly, and off to great applause. Some good exit flyering afterwards and, hopefully, that'll spread the word that our show's a laugh.

More notes that need working on: the guest set needs mending. The cross bar is only held on by elastic bands, and has been ever since I lost one of fixing bolts during a gig on the Gilded Garden's outside stage (don't look for it, it's not there any more) in 2012. I must find a way of making it more secure, otherwise I can't lift the set with one hand, which makes getting on and off stage really hard.

Last night's opening audience, for our main show, wasn't bad. It beat 6 out of 9 shows, beating all of the "Modern Era" shows except 2015's Minging Detectives. Somehow, since our 2012 return, we've never managed the feat of '09 and '10 when our opening nights were sellouts. It was the past, they did things differently then.

And it's raining. We're all very nostalgic for the legendary summer of 2018 - do you remember it? When the sun shone all day, we reached record temperatures, and no-one thought it would ever end? That seems like years ago. I'm wearing an anorak and my flyers are sticking together. Onwards and upwards.

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

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

"Great show" - Edinburgh Evening News

Check this out from tonight's Edinburgh Evening News. We're one of their...

27 great shows to see at the Edinburgh Festival

Published: 15:02
Tuesday 31 July 2018
Updated: 09:23
Wednesday 01 August 2018

The Festival season is upon us and we’ve picked one show a day to keep you right for August. Enjoy . . .

August 1
Jack Docherty: Miekelson and McGlashan – Serious Men

Back at the Fringe for the first time in 25 years, Jack Docherty spotlights two of his best-loved characters: Scot Squad’s Chief Commissioner Cameron Miekelson and the fiercely patriotic McGlashan from Channel 4’s still-missed Absolutely. Gilded Balloon at the Museum, 9pm, £9 (preview)

August 2
Jimeoin: Result!

The Irish stand-up isn’t a household name but he’s filled Edinburgh’s bigger venues over many a Fringe. Here’s your chance to find out why. Pleasance at EICC, 8.40pm, £9 (preview)

August 3
Best of the West End
If Elaine Paige on Sunday is your Radio 2 show of choice, this review is for you, as big talents sing big songs. And probably the odd dirgey ballad, but these things happen…
The Space @ Symposium Hall, 6.05pm, £9/£11

August 4
Jo Caulfield: Killing Time
Who will the ever-acerbic, unfailingly funny Caulfield aim her truth barbs at this year? Well, she lives in Edinburgh, so maybe you’ve gotten on her wick in a supermarket… she’s lovely, really! The Stand,7.40pm, £9/£10

August 5
Janeane Garafolo
The publicity for this one doesn’t give much idea as to what this show’s about: ‘...In addition to acting in film and television, Janeane is an outspoken activist, spoken word performer and stand-up comedy entertainer known and respected around the world.’ Zzzzz Still, she’s made films and everything… surely the star of The Truth About Cats and Dogs is worth a punt? Gilded Balloon Teviot, 9.15pm, £12/£13

August 6
Neil Delamere: Controlled Substance
He’s not here every year, but when Delamere – a big star on Irish TV – does show up, he’s invariably one of the funniest turns around. The stories are always a hoot but the audience interaction interaction is easily as good. Unmissable. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 7.30pm, £10.50/£12.50

August 7
Nick and Nina
It’s always good to find a great new piece of theatre, and this play certainly has potential. In the private visiting room of a Scottish prison, a fraught long-term friendship reaches its breaking point… Laughing Horse @ The Mockingbird, 6.30pm, free (collection taken)

August 8
Damian Clark: Extra Show
‘Due to phenomenal demand, 26 shows have been added in the same room at the same time.’ Yes, we see what he did there. Anyway, the seriously sunny Aussie export is always worth visiting. He draw cartoons and likes cats. Nice man. And seriously fun. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 10pm, £8/£10

August 9
King Creosote
King Creosote, aka Kenny Anderson, ventures forth from the East Neuk of Fife to bring us‘a goosebump-giving set of his hooky, plaintive folk-rock, dipping into his back catalogue of hits and previewing fresh material from his upcoming album. 7pm, Leith Theatre, £25

August 10
The Frogs
One of Stephen Sondheim’s earliest works gets a rare outing. Loosely based on a comedy written by Aristophanes in 405 BC, The Frogs is a hilarious send-up of Greek comedy and satire. Honestly, it’ll be a lot better than it sounds – Sondheim gave us the songs of Sweeney Todd, Follies and Company. And it’s in one of this year’s oddest venues – a bus. Theatre Bath Bus, noon, £5/£7

August 11
Hitchcock’s The Lodger
If you’ve never seen a piece of silent cinema played with a live accompaniment, you’re in for a treat. Alfred Hitchcock’s classic 1927 film about the hunt for a Jack the Ripper-like serial killer in London comes with a live score by Gladstone’s Bag: a six-piece ensemble of piano, two violins, flute, clarinet and trumpet and also featuring a theremin. Celebrated songwriter Ivor Novello stars. artSpace@StMark’s, 10.15pm, £8/£10

August 12
Chris Forbes
The terribly talented star of BBC sitcom Scot Squad, returns to the Fringe to tell you the extraordinary tale of how he met a man who claimed to be the son of God. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 7.45pm, £10/£11

August 13
You’re a Good Man Charlie Brown
Charles M Schulz’s beloved Peanuts cartoon strip comes to life as Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the rest of the gang navigate the joys and pitfalls of childhood. The three-panel gags translate to the stage with brio, and the songs are really rather good. Greenside, 12.35pm, £5/£8

August 14
A Night of Dark Intent
Eight women meet in an abandoned house where a double murder took place will they survive the night? Dark drama from America. The Space @ Niddry Street, 12.25pm, £5

August 15
Viv Groskop: Vivalicious
Chosen because we heard her chatting to Graham Norton on the wireless and she sounds fun, Viv Groskop has put together a show about self-help in the coming age of President Oprah Winfrey. With a degree in Russian Literature, how could Groskop not be hilarious? Underbelly, Bristo Square, 4.10pm, £8/£9

August 16
Alfred Hitchcock’s Writers Room
This original play sees Master of Suspense Alfred Hitchcock hire four young writers to script potential follow-ups to his big hit of 1960, Psycho. However, with the master of suspense, all is not as it seems… Comedy meets drama – well, Hitch always did consider Psycho a comedy. Which is deeply weird. theSpace on North Bridge, 12.05pm,

August 17
Patrick Monahan #Goals
Looking strangely suave this year, Irish-Iranian gagster Patrick Monahan returns with a new show all about achieving what you want in life. Or not. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 8pm, £12/£14

August 18
Absolute Legends
An interactive fantasy adventure for the ages. For all ages well, everyone above the age of three. Do battle with fierce monsters, avoid deadly traps and become an absolute legend all before lunchtime. Laughing Horse @ The Free Sisters, 10am, free (collection)

August 19
Flo & Joan
You know those two sisters who sing about how much they hate each other on the building society TV ads? Well, we don’t know if they’re really sisters - and can’t be bothered to look it up, FAKE NEWS! - but we do know they’re at the Fringe. Go and hear theur funny songs and banter. And they probably won’t try to sell you PPI. Pleasance Courtyard, 4pm, £11/£12

August 20
Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre: Superheroes
The Fringe veterans are back to stick their toes into the water of the world of superheroes and villains. Did you know DC Comics has a killer sock called Argh!Yle!? They probably do. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 10.30pm, £8.50/£10.50

August 21
An Evening With Miss Wong
Here’s the story of Anna May Wong, laundry girl turned Hollywood star – yet back in the early days of cinema she wasn’t allowed to kiss her leading men. Assembly Rooms, 12.40pm, £9/£10

August 22
Jon Culshaw and Bill Dare: The Great British Take-Off
Man of 849 voices Jon Culshaw and legendary comedy writer/producer Bill Dare from BBC Radio 4’s Dead Ringers present unscripted, spontaneous topical comedy and conversation, with politicians, sports personalities and celebrities are up for roasting. Gilded Balloon Teviot, 1.30pm, £14/£15

August 23
Chris Dugdale: Up Close
If the spell of the Fringe is beginning to wear off by Week Three, consider a magician. Chris Dugdale comes with a sterling reputation that doesn’t look set to vanish anytime soon.
Assembly Rooms, 7.10pm, £11/£12

August 24
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane McDonald?
Friday nights on Channel 5 have lately been dominated by the Queen of Cruising, the Wonder of Wakefield, the Songstress of the Seas. If you yearn to be in her presence, you need to attend a meeting of Jane McDonald Anonymous. Let the Cruisettes guide you back to sanity.
Laughing Horse @ The Three Sisters, 6.30pm, free (collection)

August 25
Patrick Monahan #Goals
Looking strangely suave this year, Irish-Iranian gagster Patrick Monahan returns with a new show all about achieving what you want in life. Or not.
Gilded Balloon Teviot, 8pm, £12/£14

August 26
Scottish Sinfonia
The Festival’s nearly over, and you may need something calming. How about Mahler’s Symphony No 4 in G major, songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Mozart’s Symphony No 35 in D courtesy of The Scottish Sinfonia? With soprano Elizabeth Roberts, conductor Neil Mantle and 90 very talented musicians.
St Cuthbert’s Church, 7.45pm, £8/£13/£15

August 27
Virgin Money Fireworks Concert
It’s the big one, an explosion of colour and sound against the backdrop of the Castle. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra will play a selection of music by West Side Story’s Leonard Bernstein to mark his centenary, then it’s The Planets by Holst.
9pm Ross Theatre & Princes Street Gardens, £15.50-£34 or find a spot around the city and enjoy the light show for free

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

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

Posters and flyers, Edinburgh begins

Big enough poster for you? This year we've invested in some slightly bigger posters. Not many, three in fact. This one (a 60" x 40") is the biggest, and the other two are Quad posters which I haven't found yet. But I felt I had to dip my foot into the water and see if it made any difference at all.

When you spot your big poster, and take your photo with it, you feel like you're such a big deal and it's going to make such an impact. What this photo doesn't show is me pulling back to reveal the 10,000 other posters, all much bigger than this, which have become the modern posterised landscape of Edinburgh.

We've come a long way since the Socks' first year when a company called Diabolical Liberties would flypost your A2 posters all over the city under cover of the night. Now Bristol's own Out Of Hand have the exclusive licence with the council to provide and put up these vinyl printed banners all over the city. Given that our wee 60 x 40 costs 150 quid, and the two Quads cost that much for two, I can't begin to calculate how much has been spent by other shows on their posters. There are some shows for which I've already walked past half a dozen 8-foot-high banners, which must cost £250 a pop, and I know that's only the tip of their promotional iceberg. Shows must be spending tens of thousands on publicity, for shows in venues as small as mine where, as far as I can work out, you can't possibly earn those tens of thousands back in ticket sales. I'm sure they know what they're doing.

Me, I put my faith in the good old fashioned flyer. They arrived Tuesday, three boxes containing 10,000 flyers, which I shall be distributing personally on the streets of Edinburgh with my characteristic flick (see above). In fact I gave my first flick, not for my own flyer, but for the cast of a show who caught me on the street yesterday. They're called Strictly Arts and their show is called Freeman. Here's that first-flick-of-the-season in full...

Having arrived Monday afternoon I've already delivered t-shirts and comics to the Gilded Balloon shop, said hello to everyone at the venue and picked up my lanyard, done the long walk and parked the car (until Saturday when I'll be taking it out to do a class in a library), done my soundcheck and met my new tech Cassandra and found that Steve Gunn, my tech from last time, is now Head Of Production, and spent the day looking after Heather, who was suffering a severe allergic reaction to something so we had to phone NHS direct, get some medicine, oh it was all go (she's feeling better today).

All that and I got along to my first party. The first, and only, party I'll be able to go to and take advantage of the free drinks, in this case a Gin & Raspberry concoction. I met some nice people - a couple who are producing and performing a show of the songs of Tom Waits & Leonard Cohen, a guy whose flatmate books the acts for the venue we were in, and Svetlana of Kev & Svetlana, with whom I talked Russia and politics. Some good drag acts, mixed with some camp acts, and a couple of cabaret acts with a camp/draggy crossover flavour. I believe they call it Variety. (I jest, I was really enjoying them, especially Myrna DuBois who is reminiscent of Lily Savage in her prime). I didn't stay late, leaving at a time before what will, starting tonight, be curtain up for my show. I really must adjust to Edinburgh time soon.

Show opens tonight, and I have a three minute slot on Chortle Fast Fringe before that. Best get stuck into the day. In the meantime, do enjoy a shot of our lovely flat. Better than we were expecting.

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

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

Hartlepool to home to Edinburgh - travels with my art

Blimey, is that enough driving for you? Check out these two Google Maps, plotting my trip from home on Tuesday morning to Worcester, then to Darlington, Hartlepool, Stockton, Leyburn then (cos you couldn’t fit that many destinations on one Google Map) to Nottingham, Kibworth, Derby, Sheffield, home again, and straight off the next morning all the way to Edinburgh, where we’ll be for the next month.

I didn’t bother including the map for Monday’s trip to Barnet and back, and the preceding weekend’s flight and drive to Enniskillen and home. But add those on and you can see I’ve spent 10 solid days travelling, of which more than 24 hours were spent behind the wheel of a car. If I’ve ever earned my Edinburgh rest, of not having to drive for a month, I’ve earned it this year.

In fact I will be driving a little bit, with schools to do, and who knows what other eventualities might occur, but hopefully for most of the next 27 days my car will be parked up a long walk away, and I’ll get healthy with a lot of traipsing the streets of Embra.

I could certainly do to lose some weight. The big curse of travelling is eating unhealthily. I try to do better, but grabbing sandwiches at lunch, being unable to resist a hotel breakfast, and catering for myself in the evening means I’m inevitably eating less well than one does at home. I’ve gulped down a few slices of raw garlic in my hotel room, but it’s not as easy to do as when you’re in your kitchen. And there’s something about shop-bought food that’s more salty and sugary and less fresh than what your body needs. I talked to a comedian not long ago who’s developed gout and put it down to Ginsters pasties. So, let’s see if a month of flying and eating in our lovely new Edinburgh flat works its wonders.

Any big observations from my trip (which was, of course, to do a string of Comic Art Masterclasses which are well documented here)? Well Hartlepool is pretty run down, with a lot of effort being made to try and boost it, but with a lot of work to do. They have Wesleyan chapel whose roof is burnt out and that you can see ,from the neon Carling sign out front, spent its last days as a night club. Called The Wesleyan. It’s what he would have wanted.

Stockton On Tees is less run down, and included this Georgian looking building, with thick cobwebs in the window making it look like it’s been empty for 50 years, but panning up to the sign you can see it was a wine bar until quite recently.

I stayed in The George Hotel in Piercebridge, which is where the song My Grandfathers Clock was written, and was in the pretty market town of Leyburn in North Yorkshire when the rains finally came, ending the two months of blazing sun, most of which has been happening while I’ve been indoors doing classes, or sat in a chilly air-conditioned car.

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.