My TV Of The Year, Part 1: Bubbling Under, Lost It, etc...

Time for me to list my Top TV Of 2020, a funny old year. Given that we inevitably watched so much more TV than a normal year, it's surprising I'm able to keep it to a Top 40, but I am. I don't make a note of movies, of which we've watched a lot. We begin my list, as always, with the sub-categories of shows that didn't make the Top 40.

LOST IT - Ryan Murphy Special

Ratched

Pose

The Politician

Hollywood

Ryan Murphy’s shows all start brilliantly. They’re full of colour and invention, and take their stylistic flourishes to the extreme. Ratched mixed Hitchcock tropes with, frankly, more Hitchcock tropes, and had more Dutch angles than an Amsterdam loft. The Politician was the most technicolour political drama I’d ever seen. Hollywood transported you to the era then turned the colour up to eleven. And Pose topped my TV of the year last year. They were all brave with their sexual politics and original with their characters, pushing their storylines beyond expectations in impressive ways.

Then every single one jumped shark after shark and went off the rails. Hollywood became a very silly parody of itself. Pose lost focus and drifted away. The Politician totally ran out of steam and wound up as the biggest anti climax in TV history (Rock Paper Scissors? Really?). And Ratched, which had started off mad as a box of hair, just got madder and more extreme, and somehow not in a good way.

I look forward to the first half dozen episodes of anything this team come up with, but I know it’s going to end in disappointment.

NEVER HAD IT

Haunting of Bly House (1 episode) - Least scary horror show ever

Norsemen (1 episode) - The Norwegian TV series we gave up on (stay tuned in the Top 40 for one we actually liked)

The Duchess (1 episode) - Catherine Ryan portraying herself as simply unlikeable

Out Of Her Mind (1 episode) - Sara Pascoe portraying herself as simply unlikeable

Truthseekers. - We’ve actually kept watching this, despite it being the sort of spooky drama you got on kids TV in the 1970s, with fewer surprises

HAST THOU GOT CROPS IN JETHRO?

In all honesty I can’t think of a contender for this slot, reserved for shows which thinly disguise their message as drama. This year’s many message-heavy and worthy dramas have managed to use art to conceal the artifice. Well done telly. (Previous winners: The Good Place, Butterfly and Pose)

STAPLES

Talking Pictures TV

Taskmaster

Uni Challenge

Only Connect

Richard Osman’s House Of Games

Young Sheldon

Schitt’s Creek

Brooklyn 99

Bobs Burgers

Strictly Come Dancing

BUBBLING UNDER

A Suitable Boy

The English Game

El Vecino (The Neighbour)

The Salisbury Poisonings 

Sitting In Limbo 

BEST RE-VIEWINGS

Line Of Duty Series 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 

Curb Your Enthusiasm 10, 1, 2, 3, 4

Torchwood Children Of Earth

So, what shows have made my Top 40 of 2020? The answers lie here...

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 - AND NOW ONLINE VIA ZOOM. email for details. His debut graphic novels Findlay Macbeth , The Prince Of Denmark Street and The Midsummer Night's Dream Team are available on Amazon. Follow Kev on Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

Socks Xmas Special, and technical hiccups

The Socks Xmas Special was on Zoom on Friday Dec 11th and wasn't without its problems. After 6 months of very successful shows, whose only technical issues were largely of my making (me struggling to cue video clips while wearing socks on my hands, usually), this show hit a new problem. Bandwidth.

The culprit, as far as I can work out, was a piece of software called Speedify, which I'd been advised to install by a corporate client for whom I'm doing a gig next week. It's supposed to speed up your broadband by keeping you attached to the fastest available supply. The thing is, we've got superfast broadband already and never have a problem with it. I use this Speedify thing for the first time and, as the show goes on, I start seeing the words "Your internet connection is unstable" appearing on my Zoom screen. Something I've never seen before. And, though I wasn't to realise it until Hev passed me a note during the show, the viewers at home were suffering. For everybody they were getting frozen images and occasional blank screens, and for some even the sound was disappearing. Having watched the recording I can confirm that parts of it were unwatchable.

So, having uninstalled Speedify, I'm doing the whole show again on Sunday night. 

I was very pleased to have written so much new material for the show, making it all the more frustrating that people couldn't enjoy it properly (a half dozen people left the show halfway through). And another technical error, mine this time, was taking the advice of the Zoom training given me by this corporate client regarding the volume of sound clips. So I turned the volume down on all my music clips. And, lo, they were too quiet. Why did I do that? They've been perfect for every previous show!

Here's the running order they got on Friday night

Intro gags (all Xmas all new)
I'm A Sock (New Xmas version, first time I've ever changed the lyrics)
Hannukah routine (new)
It's Beginning To Smell A Lot Like Christmas (song, 2017)
Little Baby Jesus (only seen in a Leicester Superheroes preview, Feb 2018)
Giving Granny Covid For Christmas (song, brand new)
Tannenbaum (written for a video clip, 2008)
Fannying About The Christmas Tree (song, 2017)
The Crown routine (new)
Improv Xmas movie (Gremlins/Elf/Wonderful Life)
Die Hard Song (brand new, inc video editing)
Princess Di Hard routine (new)
Dean Friedman guest slot - I Want A Nuclear Device song
Xmas Songs You Daren't Sing (classic routine from 2009 show)
Little Drummer Boy (song, new recording)
Furniture puns (new) leading into "falling out" routine
Dean Friedman return slot - Well Well Said The Rocking Chair
Finale: A Christmas Carol (first performed in 2007, rewritten to include callbacks)
Hogmanayness (song, 2018)

So, with the exception of Christmas Carol & Songs You Daren't Sing, and half of the songs, this was an all-new show I'm not saying it's all the greatest stuff we've ever done, but it has more new writing in than most of our early preview shows have. This year has seen a lot of writing I'm proud of. Let's hope it's not all too topical and I might have something to make into the new live show for 2021.

Socks Xmas Special The 2nd Coming - Dec 13

UPDATE: Hooray, Sunday went perfectly. The full show can be found here.

2020's Most Popular Celebrity With Schoolkids is...

 2020's Most Popular Celebrity With Schoolkids is... harder to determine than in most years. 

You see, as part of my Comic Art Masterclass, which I usually spend about 100 days a year taking to schools and libraries around the country (and the world), I draw a demonstration strip on the board and I get the kids to suggest a celebrity to star in it (all part of keeping them engaged and entertained). I take four nominations from the room, then we have a knockout show of hands and end up with the favourite who I then draw. This celeb then gets a subtle mention on the front cover I draw, also from their suggestions (the example above had Barack Obama as guest celeb, you can probably see).

However 2020 is not like other years. So, though the first two and a half months were choc full of classes from Glasgow to London, South Wales to Yorkshire, The Lake District to Cambridgeshire, that all stopped in the middle of March when lockdown began.

At the end of June an enterprising school arranged my first ever classes on Zoom, since which time I've done classes for groups as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Massachusetts, Australia, and Kinshasa, as well as slightly more local schools from Berwick On Tweed to Reading (and one visit to a real school in Coventry). 

The bottom line, for this particular survey, is that I've done far fewer classes than a normal year, so we don't have as many results to choose from, as you'll see in the comparison with previous years. Nevertheless the results are totted up and here's who the kids named:

Chosen once:

Amanda Holden

Ant McPartlin

Barack Obama

Bill Gates

Bob Ross

Charli D’Amelio

Chris Hemsworth

Cleopatra (yes, that one)

David Attenborough

Eddie Murphy

Elvis Presley

Gordon Ramsay

Harry Potter

James Bond

James Charles

Jennifer Aniston

Jesy Nelson

John Barrowman

Justin Bieber

Kanye West

Kevin Hart

Kim Jong Un

Kim Nam Joon

Kobe Bryant

Lady Gaga

Lazer Beam

Marti Pellow (kid had just been in panto with him)

Michael McIntyre

Miranda Hart

Neymar

Simon Cowell

Stan Lee

4th Place - Chosen twice

Billie Eilish 

Dwayne Johnson 

Lewis Capaldi 

3rd Place - Chosen three times

Boris Johnson 

Kim Kardashian 

Michael Jackson (3rd place 2019, chosen 8 times in 2018, 12 in 2015)

The Queen 

Robert Downey Jr 

Runner up - Chosen seven times

Ariana Grande (runner up in 2019 too)

Winner - Chosen eight times

Donald Trump

Donald Trump has been the winner of the kids choice for five years in a row. In 2019 he was chosen 16 times, 2018 30, 2017 42, 2016 25. Before that he'd been chosen twice in 2015 and never mentioned before that. It is a delight to have this clear measure of his novelty having worn off.

No-shows this year included David Walliams (chosen 5 times in 2019), Ed Sheeran (4 in 19), Ronaldo and Beyonce, and long gone are the days when Simon Cowell used to top the chart. He was chosen 5 times in 2019, but 20 times in 2016).

The kids favourite celeb 2019

The kids favourite celeb 2018

The kids favourite celeb 2017

The kids favourite celeb 2016

The kids favourite celeb 2015

The kids favourite celeb 2014

The kids favourite celeb 2013

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 - AND NOW ONLINE VIA ZOOM. email for details. His debut graphic novels Findlay Macbeth , The Prince Of Denmark Street and The Midsummer Night's Dream Team are available on Amazon. Follow Kev on Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

Captain America vs The Covids - final kids comics of the year

 It's been a quiet year for Comic Art Masterclasses, for reasons it's not hard to fathom, but a satisfying one all the same, ending today with a Zoom class with Abbey School in Reading, which was one of the very first schools I visited at the start of the year. Way back in January, when the spectre of coronavirus hadn't reared its ugly wossname. They produced the first and last images above, the others coming from my final two Backwell school classes (ending a series of 8 evening classes, with years 7 and 8), and a day with pupils at Tweedmouth Middle School in Berwick (a lot easier to get to by Zoom).

The celebs these pupils chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Gordon Ramsay, Michael Jackson, Ant McPartlin, and David Attenborough (the Backwell classes didn't do the demo this time).

So, which celebrity will be the most popular with kids this year? Shouldn't take as long to tot up as previous years. The results will appear here when I've done so.

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 - AND NOW ONLINE VIA ZOOM. email for details. His debut graphic novels Findlay Macbeth , The Prince Of Denmark Street and The Midsummer Night's Dream Team are available on Amazon. Follow Kev on Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

Alternative covers for my books

Seeing the books in WH Smiths at the weekend, I was struck by the cliched look of the covers. Then it struck me that they were all in Smiths, and selling in whopping numbers, and mine aren't. So I came up with redesigns of my three books. Not only tweaking the covers to look more conventional, but also slightly amending the credits (in the mould of James Patterson, who seems to make his name big on the cover, followed in smaller type by the co-writer who, one assumes, did most of the actual work but is not the name that sells).

Ooh, that one needs tweaking again doesn't it? His feet should go off the edge of the page, or the street should be further up to meet them, Or something.

Feedback to the new designs has been mostly positive. Here's a taste. In answer to the question, do we like it..?

Andy Williams I think it's a stronger cover.

Declan Hill Yep, like it.

Hazel Hall Yes

Vince Stadon Nice!

Hayden Cohen 2 things. Have you tried the new background but with the full colour Macbeth? It may make it pop. Also can you not AB test on Amazon and it’ll print either or?

Andy Winter Think Shakespeare being so bold on the cover might put some people off...

Rick Cowling Got to be honest, it looks a lot like the generic thriller covers I used to see in distributor catalogues every month. I can see why you may want rework the cover if you think it's a sticking point though.

Leo Wright I quite like the original personally, as I think it pops more, but I like what you have done here,

Derek Brettle I like it but would keep the the stanley knife and blood vivid red.

Scott Barr Cool

Dean Powell Yes, the new one 👍

Chris Okse Oxenbury I like v2 I know what you’re doing with the wallpaper but it screams magic eye picture to me and the characters in the background get lost.

Ger Apeldoorn I would say yes.

Richard Hayes Like it! I would suggest including the vivid red blood on the hands and knife though.

Chris Okse Oxenbury Richard Hayes good idea

John Earwaker Gives a different slant, what about also ‘interpreted by..’

Audrey Tweed To be flippant it reads rather like a poster for the Glasgow Empire 🙀but it is eye catching .John Earwakers idea sounds good.

Jude Sutherland I like it.

Jeremy Dixon I think it’s going to stand out more than the original and work at a smaller size, but I’d have the title first (and letter-kern the L and A), with the author names smaller. And perhaps you could do something with the author names that is a bit more hu… See More

Steve Way Most thrillers have back views And mist come to think of it..?

Felicity Harper Yes, I like it.

John Jackson Top one has more mood.. Other ones got a busy background

Nathan Mangosmoothie Viney Both r good 😮

Shane Chebsey I do like that actually

Laura Templeton I think it really works. And agree with the comment about the red Stanley knife

Steve MacManus Yes.

Anthony Miller No reason you only have to have one cover. Harry Potter had two - one for adults and one for children.

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 - AND NOW ONLINE VIA ZOOM. email for details. His debut graphic novels Findlay Macbeth , The Prince Of Denmark Street and The Midsummer Night's Dream Team are available on Amazon. Follow Kev on Facebook, Twitter. Promo video here. 

Giving Granny Covid For Christmas - Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

 

Brand new from the Socks, their seasonal ditty Giving Granny Covid For Christmas, fresh up on the Youtubes. Do please share and enjoy.

This and other nonsense will be in our Xmas show on December 11th on Zoom - book now!

As for whether the remainder of the Fingers Crossed Tour will be happening, this is very much in doubt. Yesterday it was announced that the locations of all three remaining shows (Clevedon, Lichfield, and Barton On Humber) are all in Tier 3, which means no live entertainment. However, the tiers are reviewed on December 16th, so there's a remote possibility that, with one day's notice, the shows (which are on December 17th, 18th & 19th) might still go ahead.

I won't hold my breath. Though, come to think of it, possibly that would help with the covids.

If you're damn fool enough - sorry, brave, kind and supportive enough - to buy advance tickets for these three shows which may not happen, tickets are still on sale. 

Dec 17 - Clevedon Theatre Shop 

Dec 18 - Lichfield @The_Garrick

Dec 19 - @RoperyHall Barton On Humber

NB: As of Dec 1st, Giving Granny Covid has "reached" 9000 people, been watched 4000 times and been shared 132 times on Facebook. The two Youtube versions (subtitled and vanilla) have had 803 and 271 views respectively.

Marooned in Tier 3

 Marooned! There’s us, the lonely island of Tier 3ers floating in a sea of Tier 2. So, if we want to spend a day out anywhere more interesting than Weston Super Mare, we’d better do it this weekend.

During Lockdown 2 we’ve been able to go to National Trust gardens (inc Killerton House in Devon) and interesting towns from Wells to Chippenham, Bath to Burnham. Now Lockdown’s lifted we can’t go to any of them. (Except Burnham, whoop de doo).

Meanwhile the rellies in Wales remain as inaccessible as ever.

On the plus side, the three Socks gigs that I declared cancelled yesterday might not be. They’re on Dec 17, 18 & 19, and the tiers get reviewed on the 16th. So I might still have three gigs (that literally no one is going to be mad enough to buy an advance ticket for) that I’ll know about with less than a day’s notice.

It’s a funny old world.