First sellout and a gig at the airport

As weird gigs go, this was right up there. The Socks performed a 20 minute set on the concourse outside Edinburgh airport. It was a fun experience, and makes a nice little video clip, but as for putting bums on seats I can't imagine it'll do much. As Hev realised as she, very kindly, handed out flyers to the few people who were sitting round watching, as opposed to rushing to catch the tram, the only people who wait around outside an airport are people who are about to fly away. If you've arrived in Edinburgh, you're not going to stop and watch a comedy show.

But we got some nice laughter from a cluster of staff who came and formed an audience, and it was great fun on a sunny day. Daft, I know, but we could be tempted to do it again. Maybe if we could time our 20 minute slot to precisely coincide with the moment the main flight from Heathrow delivers the delegates for the TV festival. Yes, that should be easy enough to time. (Not only will we not be the first to have thought of this, but the chances of them emerging from the baggage carousel during your 20 minute window are infinitesimal. Don't think that's going to put us off.)

Oh yeah, and we lost another eyeball, the third in three days. This time it was Sock on the left again. I don't know what it is with these eyeballs, they're made of the same stuff they've been for the last couple of years (a polystyrene concoction, which doesn't get water damaged as much as the papier mache eyeballs we've had before), though I do recall we lost one eyeball during an Edinburgh show last year, so they are more vulnerable. Maybe a return to papier mache is on the cards.

The family's here. Jude, Doug, Shona and Kirsty have hit town for a week, and we met up with them for the first time today. We'll be seeing more of them across the week, but in the brief time we had together Shona & Kirsty helped me use Instagram (about which I am clueless) and Shona even tried flyering, but found it less fun than I do. I then went off and flyered, as is my wont.

And we had a sellout. First one of the season, all 60 tickets sold by the start of the show. It was a sweaty one, though the room is getting cooler (slightly) as we master techniques of keeping the doors open through the changeovers etc. And the audience were great. Though the act who comes in after me, Zach Zimmerman, overheard one of my punters saying "That got dark", so I'm intrigued to see if that's a widespread feeling, and whether that's good or bad.

The show of two halves is now something I'm quite happy with, though I'm aware that if they're laughing at the first half, which is all sketches, they fall a bit more silent in the character comedy that follows. I'm punching up the comedy in the second half and it's developing organically. If we ever get a reviewer, we'll find out how much I'm deluding myself about the adequacy of our show.

Yeah, we didn't get a photo of the Sold Out board last night (don't know if there even is one at Patter Hoose, I'll have to check), so here's one we took last year.

PS: The Improv bit. I must remember to keep note of what act the audience ask us to improv every night. On Friday it was Human Cannonball (excellent, fresh adlib with striking matches and length of time it took to light blue touch paper); Thursday was Lion Taming, which we did without the "Cher" ending that we've used before (started as a genuine adlib, less good when it comes back reheated) and got great laughs from the "radge" lion; Wednesday I can't remember, but I bet it was brilliant.

 

Until August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!

Eyeballs and sweat - First nights at Edinburgh

Ouch. Here's the damage after the first night of Roll Up at this year's Fringe. The Sock on the left's eyeball got wrenched off during a costume change in the second half of the show. Thankfully they seemed to get away with it, with a lot of tonight's laughter, in what was a good opening show, coming from the wardrobe malfunctions.

Of which there were a couple too many, thanks, in part, to the heat. The Socks show this year is taking place in a brand new venue, The Gilded Balloon's Patter Hoose, which was formerly C Venues and is, for the rest of the year, Adam House on Chambers Street. My sub-venue, Dram, is one of two black boxes that have been erected inside what must be a gigantic ballroom. They're good spaces, which could actually seat more than the 60 punters they have allocated. The problem which only became obvious on the first night is that they have no air coming into them.

With air con units, and judicious opening of doors, we'll eventually cool the place down, but on the first night the room was the hottest room I've performed in since 2007/8's Balcony, which remains the hottest place on Earth I've ever been.

It's been that warm-up period where you meet friends you've not seen for a year. Here's me and Marcus, in our annual reunite selfie. And, talking of changing the subject, I was reassured talking to a friend who's in a Pleasance venue to learn that he too has a problem with the heat, causing heavy make-up to dribble into his eyes and blind him. So these teething problems affect us all, and we'll get over them.

Our Fringe kicked off with a performance at Chortle Fast Fringe on Wednesday where, though I say so myself, the Socks killed. Keeping our slot down to just two and a half minutes, we played a blinder, and did some good exit-flyering afterwards. That's the way to start your month.

The Patter Hoose looks good at night, and we've yet to see whether its location works well for getting punters in. One thing I've realised I can't do, which I was getting into the swing of last year, is last minute whipping-in. I was able, in recent years, to go round the tables of the Gilded Garden bar, just outside Teviot, reminding people our show was about to start. This regularly got a last minute handful of people to dash to the box office and come into the show. Now I'm in a venue that's a five minute walk from the Garden Bar, and which doesn't have such a busy bar itself, I can only do advance flyering. But, hey, I've done that before and, with application, I shall prove that I can find the punters, wherever they may hide themselves. Audiences for the first two nights were, I confess, lower than I'd like (Day 1 Wednesday was 30,  the same as Socks In Space's first night, and just a few short of Superheroes and Shakespeare; but Day 2 Thursday was a rather poor 21, 2 short of Superheroes and in fact our third lowest opening Thursday ever. More flyering needed.)

Busy enough for you? This was the sight that greeted me at The List launch party at Summerhall on Thursday night, when I got there about 11.00. Quite the busiest of the parties I've managed to go to this season, and the winner of the free drinks prize, with Johnnie Walker, Red Bull, Innis & Gunn and no doubt others I could neither reach nor see giving away free drinks - and free top hats by the handful - left right and centre. Despite which I didn't stay long, having only found two people I knew, and had a nice chat with a chap who works as a clown. Well done Summerhall, though, on a great looking launch.

The Edinburgh Festival mag launch at Brewhamia (Tuesday) was fun, as it had been last year, with drag acts galore and more free drinks, this time a designer whisky whose name I, sadly, can't remember. Before that, and clashing with it (so one could nip between the two) was the Patter Hoose launch, with free wine and Johnnie Walker (a brand whose promotions are ubiquitous in town this year because, I learn, they're opening a new "Experience" venue on Princes St. The top hats are theirs. So far I've only collected one, but I'm sure there are more to be had.).

The Gilded Balloon's Press Launch was fun, but bloody hard work for the performers, comprising as it does a 90 minute show of various acts, in front of an industry audience, famous for their resistance to fun and laughing. The violin act (Bowjangles), the tap dancing blokes (The Tap Pack) and physical comics The Kagools were the most successful in the challenging environment, looking like great shows, and Gingezilla's torch singing commanded the room brilliantly. Comedians struggled more, but once they'd got over the fact that you weren't going to get proper laughter from this room, Hal Cruttenden, Maisie Adams, Daliso Chaponda, Fred Macaulay, magician Pete Heat, sketch group Just These Please, and especially MC Scott Gibson acquitted themselves well. Here's hoping the room was full of journalists that know enough about comedy to know to know a good act when they see one. It was good to touch base with Ewan, Geoff and other journalists, in our front row seats. It's good to feel the Fringe really starting.

Here's one of our posters at the venue. Due, I think, to me delivering artwork late, The Socks don't have an A1 poster outside the venue, which we'd hoped for. So we are feeling rather on the invisible side (more flyering needed). But given that there are more posters for more shows than ever before, to a degree that makes saturation feel a truly inadequate word, I'm not sure what good or harm posters do. Remembering that last year I splashed out on seven foot high billboards that seemed to make no difference to sales, let's see how different being poster-lite makes.

Oh yes, finally, what about the show itself? Well first night went great, eyeball-loss notwithstanding, and the second night was really hard work. A small crowd and a hot room probably didn't help, but they were also really really quiet from the start. The good news for me was that, once we'd won them round, they responded better to the second half of the show than the first. I've been worried that the narrative play with characters of this year's show, which is slightly different from our usual double-act sketch structure, was making the second half the weaker half, but this tough crowd showed that it ain't necessarily so.

Indeed I found this comment on Facebook this morning, referring I think to Wednesday's show: "Saw you last night - it was hands in the best thing I have seen at the fringe. Was impressed with the celebrity cast too.  An eye-popping experieince! (Hope the recovery goes well)" - Simoof T Kowdog (probably not a real name).

How am I not sure that was Wednesday's show he was referring to? Because we also lost an eyeball, this time from the "sawing a lady in half" prop, on Thursday. Let's hope this doesn't become a thing.

Until August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!

History Of Fringe Pt 8: Royal Mile (with flyerers)

New from the Socks, part 8 of their History Of The Fringe - The Royal Mile, which includes the first few flyerers we encountered on Wednesday (Phoney War Day 1, as I think of it), flyering to camera. Just a bit of fun, I hope they're not expecting to get great publicity from our little-seen videos.

We've recorded a few more flyerers for some more videos as the Fringe progresses. It's good to get back on the street, which we haven't for a while. My feeling this year is of having fun like we did in the early days, if we can.

July 31st - August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!

History Of Fringe Part 7 - & Facebook translations

Brand new from the Socks, shot on location in Edinburgh, Part 7 of our History of the Edinburgh Fringe, all about the growth of multi-tenanted venues. Enjoy.

And the fun doesn't stop with the video itself. Facebook appears to have added a new subtitling feature, which automatically guesses at the words. You can then tweak this, which I have done for a bit of the video (and will finish soon). But before the tweaking, the translations are hilarious gibberish.

The Gilded Balloon has becomes Guilty Balloon, The Pleasance Dome is now The Peasants Doom, Chaplaincy Centre has become The Chocolate Center (they even spelled centre wrong)...

And Patter Hoose has become "properties fathers". Bizarrely literal transliteration there Facebook.

William Burdett-Coutts has become "William Dead where you bought that cutest".

And quite what this was I can't remember, but we definitely didn't say anything about any Muslim events!

I may leave some of the more amusing gibberish on there, but we'd probably get more viewings if people could make sense of it all.

Bonus video: The Socks made this video giving a Russian show called Forest the chance to plug their show. I doubt our few pitiful Youtube viewers will amount to a hill of beans to anyone, but it's fun to do. I've subsequently filmed some more such clips on the Royal Mile, which may make their way into a video soon.

July 31st - August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!

Argh! Worst soundcheck ever

Here's the Gilded Balloon's new venue Patter Hoose, the way it looked last night at about 8 o'clock. It was still way more ready than me.

Every year when we come up to Edinburgh, the first important task is my get-in and soundcheck. I've been doing it for over a decade now, and pride myself in having one of the smoothest and shortest get ins. It never takes more than 20 minutes. I get complimented on it and thanked by my technicians, with whom I go on to have a marvellous working month.

And so it was I was all set for my soundcheck to take place on Tuesday night at 8pm. On Monday night, settled into our new flat, I took a wee walk around to look at the outside of my new venue (above), then Hev & I sat down to watch University Challenge at 8.30. At 8.45 I get a phone call from the head of production asking "Kev, where are you?".

My soundcheck was on Monday, not Tuesday. I'd misread the email!

On Monday morning, in my hotel room in Newcastle before setting off, I'd read the email from Meredith in production which said "Hope this finds you well, unfortunately there’s been a schedule conflict – I’m need to have to push your tech time back to 8pm – 9pm tomorrow night. Apologies for any inconvenience!". I replied saying that was okay and that I'd see them at 8pm.

So, I thought, my soundcheck's been moved forward a day, that's fine. Like an idiot, I didn't realise Meredith had written the email on Sunday night. So when she said "tomorrow" she meant today. I am an idiot.

I rushed to the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, and have never been more grateful for being so close to my venue. It's only 5 minutes away, closer than I've ever been. Luckily my technician, Florence, had agreed to stay on another half hour so we could get it done. This was going to be easy.

All I had to do, as I always do, and as I'd had practice doing last weekend in Bedford, was hand the CD with all my music on to the technician, erect my set while she was copying the songs over, or whatever it is they do, we'd agree on the lights, we'd quickly run through my songs to get my voice balanced right over the top of them, we'd find the place where I am to store my set for the month, and twenty minutes later I'd be out of there. Exactly like we've done it for the last 10 years.

Except this year there is no CD player, and no laptops that can copy from a CD. I needed my tracks on data stick or sent by Drop Box. (There had undoubtedly been an email telling me this, which I'd read as carefully as the "8pm tomorrow" email.) I had anticipated the data stick thing, which I've had with other venues, and was going to copy over my tracks ready for a Tuesday soundcheck. But now it was too late. I had them on my ipod, which didn't help, and my phone, which they couldn't copy from either. The only way they could do it (they being Florence and the head of technical whose name has escaped me in the sweaty blur that the night was becoming) was copying the tracks from my laptop.

So I ran back to the flat, got the laptop, made sure I had a datastick, and ran back to the venue. Ten minutes of our precious extra time had already been used up. Then I had to copy the tracks from itunes to the datastick, which with sweaty fingers didn't happen right the first time, then Flo had to copy them into QLab, which involved numbering them because, of course, the beauty of the Socks simple sound cues is we just ask the technician for the next track every time. But when you copy them over, suddenly their order disappears.

Half an hour had been eaten up already by this rigmarole, and we hadn't got as far as hearing my voice over the music. Eventually we got to soundchecking the first song (I'm A Sock) and had just about got the sound balance right when Florence ran out of time. It was 9.50 at night and she'd been told she had to get out of the building. I'd wasted an extra hour of her time and we hadn't finished the soundcheck.

On the plus side, I have a great storage area for my set, and I know we'll get it right on the night. One year, 2009 I think, the show itself was my soundcheck as I didn't arrive in Edinburgh until the afternoon of the first night, and that worked out fine. I'm used to playing at comedy clubs where you don't even get a soundcheck. Of course this cock-up (my fault, I have to reiterate) has to happen with the show which has more sound cues than any previous one (15 tracks, when others have as few as 9), but that's the way it crumbles cookie-wise.

It's the morning of the next day and I'm still shaking slightly. Blimey, this old frame hasn't seen that much sweaty exercise and blind panic in a while, obviously. Welcome to Edinburgh.

Oor Wullie on the Royal Mile, and why not.

PS: And we saw Boris. Well, almost. While we were in the car on our way to pick up the keys to our flat from our estate agent in the New Town, a flotilla of black diplomatic cars with police outriders held up the traffic to sweep through. That was Boris on his way to see Nicola Sturgeon. First star spot of the season.

July 31st - August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!

Yeetabix? Last kids' comics of term

The last comics of term, my term that is, all schools having broken up by last weekend. These include three days of holiday classes at Backwell school, buring which I learned the word 'Yeet'. It seems to be the kids new popular word of choice and, as you'll see, it ends up being in the titles of three of their comics. I believe it's the word one shouts when one throws something, m'lud.

Again at Backwell, and more of this Yeet malarkey. Needless to say, they hadn't heard of or seen the old Weetabix bovver boys who advertised the cereal back in the day. In fact they seemed quite shocked by them when they saw a photo. It would be a bad way of selling breakfast fods nowadays, it seems.

This was a half day at Backwell, so we only produced one comic, but I did have time to draw a nice flipchart.

Flashing back a week, this was from Reach Academy in Feltham on their penultimate day of term. This was the completion of the Hounslow Histories project I carried out last month, and was a class that I'd already been paid for. Fun either way.

Final day of classes were at Nottingham Central Library and nearby Wollaton Library, and again we have the word Yeet rearing its yeetly head. The Frog and Platypus is a favourite though, and an excuse to go to town on the colouring. Classes resume in September.

I had time on my day Nottingham to produce two flipcharts to leave them with. The archery-based Nottingham one was on recycled paper, so the poor kid who's taken it home can read the words of a totally different lecture bleeding through from the other side.

The celebrities these 9 groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were David Walliams, Michael Jackson, Billie Eilish, Donald Trump (three times), Boris Johnson, Simon Cowell, and James Charles.

Taking booking for the Autumn term now!

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries & art centres. email for details. Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

Send In The Clowns - pre show music finished

Here, brand new from the Socks, is their version of Send In The Clowns, from the newly-completed (I think, these things can change) audience-in music for Roll Up. Enjoy.

The full running order of the 10 minute sequence that should see the crowd into their seats is:

The Show Must Go On (2'30") - The Leo Sayer classic, but with the little-known Three Dog Night musical introduction. Turns out the Socks voices work perfectly in Leo's key, who knew.

Annie The Elephant (53") - For a while this was part of the show, now it's at home welcoming them in.

Send In The Clowns  (1'37") - During which I expect most people to be seated and for the show to start, but on fuller nights it'll go on longer. In which case they'll hear...

Abracadabra (38") - A cough and a spit verse that made me laugh

For The Benefit Of Mr Kite (33")  - Written purely cos I had a rhyme for Patter Hoose and a rhyme for shite. Pathetic.

Anne Hathaway (50") - Another song that was in the show at one point , now in its place in the grey area of will-they-hear-it-or-won't-they?

The Show Must Go On (again). So if, after seven minutes, they haven't managed to squeeze 60 people into a room, we get another 2 and a half minutes of Leo Sayer impersonation. If they're not in after 10 minutes and 17 seconds, we'll be over-running too badly to contemplate.

If you're interested, last year's Superheroes intro music was a medley of songs, most of which you'll find here in the Superheroes video playlist, and Shakespeare's was a similar very long medley of tunes, which you'll find here in the Shakespeare playlist.

2015's Minging Detectives intro was a Police Reggae Medley you can hear in its entirety here. At 5 minutes 41 it seems to have been the right length, so it looks like we've timed it right this year.

The Scottish Falsetto Socks brand new show ROLL UP! is previewing Nationwide:(Only 2 previews to go)
July 20 - Bedford Fringe
July 28 - Derby Bar One 

July 31st - August 25th, The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose 9.30pm, every night of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. Book now!