Hi res Socks Do Shakespeare photo

Hi res Socks Do Shakespeare photo

In The Death Garden - comics by kids

I really enjoyed drawing this cover for the year 7 pupils at The Romsey School, and am still waiting for the comeback. I've drawn CBeebies caricatures decapitating each other, surely some parent's got to complain? No word yet. Quite pleased with my mountain goat too, thanks very much.

You wait for weeks for the excuse to draw an EC comic cover pastiche, then two come along in the same week. Terror and Death, what else could one do eh? These from Fortismere School in Muswell Hill.

My classes in Baldock in Herts on Saturday produced a couple of corking comics, despite being the worst attended classes I think I've ever done. This year I've done more classes in art centres than ever before and they've been very well attended. From Prema Arts in Gloucestershire where they charged £30 a ticket and sold out 28 places, through ticketed classes in Guildford, Dorchester, Zion in Bristol, to Guernsey Library, and Martlets Hall in Burgess Hill, it's been sellouts all the way. But somehow Baldock didn't get the message and we wound up with 8 kids in the morning, and 5 in the afternoon. They got all the more of my attention and the classes were as much fun as full classes, though not quite as profitable as the art centre would have liked.

Forres Sandle Manor was an interesting class, including as it did a dozen Belgian pupils who spoke no English. Their teachers did a sterling job of translating as we went along, and we came up with a fine comic production. And only one class to do, while I got to charge for the full day. Long live independent schools, eh?

The celebrities these 7 groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were Donald Trump (twice), Simon Cowell, Damon Albarn, Tom Baker, Kanye West and, delightfully (as he died last week) Adam West. An extra fun detail is that the pupil in Fortismere School who suggested Tom Baker is the son of Pete Doherty.

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 

Pandemonium Pig Travel Ship Whirpool Turtles - comics by kids

Another week of travels to schools far and wide, and a very healthy word count on the titles the kids have come up with for their comics. These two classes from Broadchalke Primary School in Wiltshire give us 16 words between them alone.

I must say Woooo! I can't believe my comic contains this much banter! is my favourite title from a pretty high quality week. These from Ashlyns School in Berkhamsted where, for the second time this year, I found myself arriving at a school that had been evacuated because of a fire alarm. It was, in fact, a hoax bomb email which is, it seems, quite a common thing lately. They are sent to dozens of schools at once, occupying hours of police time, to what end I can't quite work out.

Dean Close School in Cheltenham is the independent school that the Reverend Marcus Morris, inventor of The Eagle comic, went to. It was also a school whose timetabling vagiaries were such that I ended up having to do three classes in a day, which is slightly different from my usual working method. But, of course, I managed it, and the three groups produced these two comics between them.

In Ludlow, on Saturday, I did one class in the library before doing a Socks show that evening. They came up with a comic whose title might not be very original. But by god look at that word count.

The celebrities these 8 classes (yes 8 classes producing 7 classes, see above) chose for my demonstration strip were Simon Cowell, Ellen Degeneres, Kim Kardashian (twice), Donald Trump (twice), Mr Bean, and Michael Jackson.

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 

1000 miles & 28 hours of radio, The Socks tour ends

On Monday, coming home from Broadchalke School in Wilts, I thought I could hear a knocking sound in my car. (My new car, bought just two months ago in April, remember). Better safe than sorry, so on Tuesday morning I took my car into Bristol to the garage to see if they could find anything, and drove off in a courtesy car.

Drove, in fact, all the way to North Yorkshire, so the Socks could play a 90 minute show at Burnsall Village Hall as part of the Grassington Festival. Thanks a million to Gilly & Shaun Hart who arranged the whole thing, having previously had us to perform at nearby Appletreewick a couple of years back. Both gigs ranking high as our most remote rural gigs, and last night's a sellout, with a cracking crowd and a record take on the merchandise (£74).

After a lovely stay in Gilly & Shaun's astonishing self-built house (a converted barn which they have, literally, done themselves. They bought a JCB and everything) it was a drive back in the courtesy car, by which time I'd learnt that the garage could find nothing wrong with my car and I had, slightly fraudulently, put nearly 500 miles on the clock.

From there, after a luxurious day in the studio mending props, printing out DVDs, and relabelling t-shirts (we've been getting through them at a healthy lick this tour), it was three nights in a row bringing the Socks tour to a close.

The Bridge House Theatre in Penge, which hadn't even figured on our tour flyer, was a surprise last-minute booking. So last minute in fact, that I'd thought it was to be a 20 minute slot on a comedy club bill, so was chuffed to find we were doing the whole 60 minute show on an Edinburgh Preview double bill with Dan Antopolski, and were closing. Another lovely crowd who, though they weren't expecting the Socks and who drew a 100% blank when asked if they'd seen us before, gave us a great reception. Why, it's almost like it's a very good show that works with any audience.

Friday was Hertford Comedy Festival, doing the show at 7.30 in the Hertford Theatre, and going down a storm. What a good audience. Stingy gets when it came to the merchandise table (a little over a tenner taken) but not everyone can be Burnsall Village Hall.

And Saturday saw the tour ending (save for two nights at Camden Fringe in August) in Ludlow where I gave them a sold out Comic Art Masterclass in the library in the afternoon, followed by a swelteringly hot ram-packed Socks Do Shakespeare in the Sitting Room at night. A perfect end to our best tour ever.

When I took my car into the garage on Monday it had just rolled over the 6000 mile mark. When I came home on Saturday night I'd added another 870 miles to that. Which, with the 478 miles in the courtesy car, is quite enough driving for one week.

Imagine if next week were anything like that. Well relax, it's all schools next week. In Berkhamsted, Cheltenham, Romsey, Fordingbridge near Southampton, Muswell Hill, and North Herts. Bugger.

An upside of all this driving is that I got to listen to a hell of a lot of radio, live & on iPlayer, and podcasts. Here are the highlights:

The Rolling Stones Story. An excellent documentary, from 1973, presented by Alexis Korner and originally broadcast on Radio 1. It featured an incredible range of interviews, from Mick, Keith and Andrew Oldham on down through engineers, producers, gig owners, you name it. Given that there was little over ten years worth of story to tell at the time, this documentary managed to fill 6 whole hours with detail. I found myself more interested in the Stones than I've ever been, and come away much more informed. Recommended for as long as it's on iPlayer.

On The Town with The League Of Gentlemen. The original radio series from 1999, of which I only heard maybe one episode at the time (remember a time when, if you missed a radio show, it stayed missed?). It's stood the test of time with some sketches much funnier, or rather more comedic and less dramatised, than their TV versions. Still laugh out loud funny, and interesting to hear the characters who would go on to be developed across the TV series.

TED Radio Hour - What Is Original? Looking at the notion of copying and originality, from Mark Ronson looking at sampling and emulating styles, through the reworking of folk songs by Dylan and his ilk, to Steve Jobs and Elon Musk and how they've built on the technological discoveries of their predecessors.

Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Collossal Podcast. He interviewed Rupert Holmes, whose album Widescreen I've loved for 40 years and who I thought, for a long time, only I'd heard of. It turns out that, apart from his brief time as a pop star, he's been a composer and author involved in everything from the early career of the Jackson 5 to best selling Broadway shows, and most things entertainment wise. Great to hear him talk, for the first time.

Also listened to John Finniemore Apparently (his pilot sketch show from 2008), John Finniemore's Double Acts, Dead Ringers, Paul Sinha's History Revision, Mark Steel's In Town, Wordaholics, Cabin Pressure, and the usual range of favourites from More Or Less and The Media Show to Just A Minute and Feedback. With this lot, a bit of Radcliffe & Maconie and the news, I'll have notched up around 28 hours of radio listening.

August 16 & 17 Camden Fringe

Parking Tickets & Only Connects - my Facebook posts

Well done BBC, his name was Roy! (They've fixed it since I took the grab)

June 9: Just filed a challenge against a car parking Penalty Notice. What do we think are my chances? Has anyone ever challenged a parking fine and got off it?

1) Okay, got a Tea-Time Theme-Time for you. What do these 3 songs have in common?

Rock DJ - Robbie Williams 

Tubthumping - Chumbawumba

Guantanamera - The Sandpipers

Reading Giles cartoons of a Sunday morning, as is our wont, stumbled across this gem from the Edinburgh Festival 1955 and, most delightfully, recognised its location. Giles has set the scene at the top of The Vennel in Edinburgh, which is where Hev and I stayed in 2015. Edinburghians should recognise it, the path that leads from Art College to the Grassmarket. Any other Giles fans out there? Ever spotted your street used as a backdrop?




June 10:
Adam West remains my Batman. I mean, you can hear what he says (yes, that's you Whispering Bale), he wasn't better in everything else he did (hello George Clooney), he wasn't hard to work with (oh Val Kilmer, you're surprised you're not in everything these days?), and he wasn't just totally wrong to play Batman (seriously, who cast Michael Keaton?). Adam West, we'll miss you at the Pigeon Toed Orange Peel.

What? I didn't mention Ben Affleck? I did not realise I had not done that.

2) Okay, got an Only Connect for you. What comes 4th in this sequence and why? (Imagine this as a picture round, that'd make it harder)

Dinah Shore

Bill Bailey

Martin Clunes
What comes 4th and why?

Doctor Who fans cover your ears. I was teaching comics to a Year 5 group today in Manchester, and on the flipchart I'd already drawn a character that would be familiar to all of you. "We know who this is?" I said, obviously. The first guess was C3PO, the next was BB8. Guesses ranged from "a alien" to something out of Spongebob. It was at least half a dozen guesses before one kid got that it was something from Doctor Who. Another piped up, "it's a Tardis!". I settled for that.
It was a Dalek! A class of thirty 9 and 10 year old kids in Manchester did not recognise a Dalek! It's the end of the world as we know it.

(Here's that flipchart itself (above). Not the best Dalek drawing ever, but come on!)

Drones

Am I the only person who's getting a bit tired of the Lazy Drone Shot that's become a new cliche in film & TV making? 3 shows we watched in the last 2 days - Handmaids Tale, Durrells and The Lobster - all did it, and you've seen it 100 times more.

Once upon a time it used to be hard work and expensive to get an aerial shot - I'm remembering the opening of The Shining for example - or to get the camera to start on high and come down low - that would need a Cherry Picker or a Jimmy-Jib. And film makers used these things deliberately, knowing how they worked within the language of film.

Now I'm worried too many directors are getting on location and thinking "and wouldn't it be cool if we had a drone shot too?" so you get a shot which creates the wrong mood, looking more dramatic than called for, or worse looking like every other film or TV show made since the Drone Boom of 2015. A bit like all those TV shows from the early 70s with experimental (rubbish) green-screen. Is it just me?

3) Okay, got a Teatime Theme Time/ Only Connect for you. What links these four songs?

California Girls by Katy Perry & Snoop Dogg

Thankyou For Letting Me Be Myself Again by Sly & The Family Stone

Back Street Love by Curved Air

Goodbye To Jane by Slade

Has the word Immigration changed its use? I ask because I'm working on a job for the Milton Keynes 50th anniversary, and did a splash referring to "Immigration", as per the brief. The client's suggested I should use the word Migration instead, as people might not understand immigration. And I realised, as we were talking, that I hear people talk of Migration and Migrants, but rarely hear the use of the terms Immigration and Emigration, which have clear and obvious meanings (the thing I'm doing is about immigration into MK, rather than emigration out of it) but maybe not to everyone. Is it a generational thing?

Just caught a Tales Of The Unexpected on Sky Arts and, Googling it as you do, discovered this unknown (to me) gem. Roald Dahl hosted a similar series, for CBS in 1961, called Way Out. Some of the stories in Way Out were re-done for TOTU. Who knew?



Can I recommend this fascinating find, recently broadcast on 6Music, now on iPlayer - The Rolling Stones Story. A documentary from 1973, presented by Alexis Korner, with an amazing array of interviews with people I've never heard speak before, inc Mick, Keith, Andrew Oldman, club runners, label owners, the lot. I thought I'd heard a lot about the Stones, but I knew next to none of this. Do you know where the Crawdaddy club got its name? Do you know who Chancery Lane and Sandy Beach were and the part they played in the Stones success? Want to hear Brian Matthews' candid impression of his first encounter with the band? This excellent doc, which must originally have been on Radio 1, has it all. And it's only Part One.


4) OK, got an Only Connect for you. What do the following items have in common?
A banana
A tin of Heinz Baked Beans
A Topic bar
A black pudding

June 14: UPDATE to my parking ticket of June 9th. This from North Somerset Council today: "I am pleased to advise you that on this occasion the notice in question has been cancelled." Thanks everyone for the reassurance. Let's spread the word, challenge your parking tickets.

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 

August 16 & 17 Camden Fringe

Only Connect / Tea Time answers:
1 - You only sing when you're winning
2 - eg Pam St Clements (Oranges & Lemons)
3 - Mis-spelled titles
4 - The Goodies

Warriors Of Moss Side - new comics by kids

My Comic Art Masterclasses have again taken me around the country, and as always I try and represent the kids in the class if I can, when they come up with titles for the comic the class produces together. So we have the Year 5s of St Marys Primary in Moss Side depicted as a hijab-wearing Wasp, and Captain Moss Side looking more like an average kid in the class, in skin tone if not in muscle mass. And I always love having a pastiche to draw, so not only did I have fun with the cover of Avengers No 4, but also the poster for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

Oh how drole kids can be. When you have older teenagers - and these groups at Sunday masterclasses in Burgess Hill's Martlets Hall included kids from 7 to 17 - you get the ironic titles. Hence Creatively Named Comic, on which I've depicted the runner-up title, a Kangaroo with a solar panel.

They came up with cats in Burgess Hill and they came up with cats in Guildford, at the G Live Centre. And potatoes. Kids love potatoes, chicken, and cheese. You're never far away from those foodstuffs when you get kids to come up with a random title.

I was trying to make this baby look like a baby, and didn't want him to look totally bald. Call me overly-politically-correct, but my picture research suggested to me that BAME babies tend to be born with more hair than caucasian babies. Trouble is I may have been rushing it, so we end up with a baby who looks like it's been born with creeping alopeceia. I can only apologise. The Planet Of The Apes cover was done in a class spread over two days, so I was able to colour it when it was only half-finished, the pupils having not yet added their contributions, which they do while I'm drawing their caricatures.

The celebrities these groups close for my demonstration strip were Benedict Cumberbatch, Cristiano Ronaldo, Mel B, Donald Trump (three times), and, most original suggestion of the week, Mr Tumble.

Comic Art Masterclasses coming up in 2017:
June 24 - Ludlow Assembly Rooms

Aug 1 - The Lights, Andover

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 

Aaaaaaaargh it's the Edinburgh Fringe Programme

I've just enjoyed the annual treat of reading the Edinburgh Fringe programme. If you've read this blog in the past, you'll know I've had this pleasure almost every year since 1984, and have watched closely the changes in the festival, and of its programme.

Back in 2015 I noted that the programme grew by about 20 pages a year. That seems to have slowed, with it having grown only 18 pages in 2 years, up from 2015's 440 pages to this year's 458.

The comedy section has remained about steady over recent years, weighing in this year at 142 pages. In 2015 it was down to 137 from 2014's 141 and 2012's 143. This compares to the first year I was in the programme, 2001, where there was a mere 33 pages of comedy.

On which subject, of course, I'm missing this year's Fringe, with the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre taking only their second year off since 2007. But it's good to see lots of familiar faces, and tropes of the programme, that carry on without us. Here are some of the choicest bits.

Aaaaaaaaaaargh. Way back in 1984, Malcolm Hardee made it a tradition to be first in the Fringe programme by naming his show Aaaaaaaaaaargh! It's Malcolm Hardee. In those days there were no separate sections for Comedy, Music, Theatre etc, so Malcolm took pride of place in the alphabetical order with this bit of silliness and originality. This year there is not one, not two, not three, but an astounding nine shows that have all named themselves Aaargh...something. From Aaaaaaaargh! The Malcolm Hardee Awards - who, let's face it, can claim some ownership of the idea - to Aaaaargh! Macbeth. There are also two shows that have begun their show title Aaaand Now..., and five that begin AAA. For the record the first legitimate act's name in the alphabetical listing is Sitcom Trials alumni Aaron Twitchen, who you should go see for that reason alone (as well as because he is excellent).

Acts without their name in the title. I don't know if this was a feature of previous year's programmes (I don't have them to hand at time of writing) but it's noticeable that a lot of comedians, with familiar names, don't appear in the alphabetical listings where you'd expect them to. Their show title is there prominently, but in many cases their name is in the subtitle only. So, hoping it doesn't affect their sales too much, have fun finding the shows by Janey Godley (filed in the Fs for For Godley's Sake), Maff Brown (under T for There's Always One), Jarlath Regan (under O for Organ Freeman), or Don Biswas (under L for Left Wing Conspiracy Theorist). They're far from the only ones to have fallen into this trap (into which we fell with our second show in 2008, The Return Of The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, which was under R in some listings, and T in others!)

Pushing Their Luck With The Title Award goes to the show, Luke McQueen: The Boy With Tape On His Face. Is he banking on the fact that the real Boy With Tape On His Face, who is also appearing this year, now goes by the name of Tape Face? Or is it a gag that's way too clever for me to appreciate?

Wrong Prime Minister On The Poster Award goes, for the second year running, to Newsrevue who had to suffer all last August with David Cameron on their poster and advert, he having unexpectedly resigned a month after the programme was published. This year they have Theresa May on their advert. At time of writing, no-one knows how out of date that will look by August.

Pun titles. Come on, who doesn't love a great pun title. Here are my 14 favourites from this year's programme.

Aaron Twitchen - Curtain Twitchen

Kae Kurd - Kurd Your Enthusiam

Gareth Mutch - Mutch Ado About Nothing

Sarah Iles - The Silly Iles

Georgie Morrell - The Morrell High Ground

Henning Wehn - Westphalia Is Not An Option

Cally Beaton - Super Cally Fragile Lipstick

Gary Tro - SupercalifragilisticexpiGARYTROcious

Adam Kay - Fingering A Minor On The Piano

Ashley Storrie: Morning Glory

Archie Maddocks - IlluminArchie

Lily Lovett Lovett Lovett, I'm Loving It Like That

Nazeem Hussain - Hussain In The Membrane

Mickey Sharma - Sharma Sharma Sharma Sharma Sharma Comedian

And this brilliant question, from the Facebook page of comedian James Cook:

What connects:

Assisted Suicide, Bat Boy, Brexit, Communism, Ouija, Pinkalicious, Scientology, Stimela, Suicide, Thrones and X? (*Answer at foot of blog)

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are not appearing at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe

*The answer is they're all followed by the words "The Musical" in this year's Fringe programme.

2017 TOUR
June 15 - Crescent Arts, Belfast
June 20 - Grassington Festival, Yorks
June 23 - Hertford Comedy Festival
June 24 - Ludlow Fringe
August 16 & 17 Camden Fringe