Socks in Aarhus

Did I not mention the Socks will be playing in Denmark on April 9th and 10th? Check this out. Too cool:



Er en af de mest omtalte og anmelderroste comedyacts på de britiske øer de seneste to år. Showet har modtaget mere end 4 og 5 stjernede anmeldelser, og sokkerne vandt Edinburgh Festival Insider Comedy Award 2009. Sokkerne har de seneste år optrådt på alt fra MTV til BBC. Det er ganske rigtigt, som titlen lyder, sokker, falsetsang og tons af grin. Det er showet, som får voksne mennesker til at falde på halen over et par sokker! Dette fantastiske og mærkværdige comedyshow er festivalens bud på de shows, som først bliver udsolgt, så skynd dig! Book billetter allerede i dag! ”Det er lang tid siden, jeg har grinet så meget. Jeg stod jo og græd af grin over et par sokker!” Citat Torben Dahl, teaterdirektør Teater Katapult

Tidspunkt: 9. april 2011 - kl. 21:00

Pris: 125 kr plus gebyr

Sted: Teater Katapult

Antiques Roadshow - Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre

New from the Socks, Antiques Roadshow. A studio version, and a live clip too. You're welcome.



The Socks are still on tour, some tickets still available:

Apr 1 - Voodoo Rooms Edinburgh
Apr 4 - Leicester Square Theatre, London
Apr 7 Rondo Bath
Apr 8 Falkirk Town Hall
April 11 - Leicester Square Theatre, London
Apr 15 - Barnfield Theatre, Exeter
Apr 22 - Eden Court Inverness
May 6 - Farnham Maltings(+Ali Cook)
May 7 & 8 - Brighton Komedia
May 12 - The Lowry, Manchester
May 13 - Halifax Victoria Theatre
May 14 Chorley Little Theatre
May 21 Norwich Fringe
June 22 & 23 - Harrogate Previews
July 2 & 3 - Lass O Gowrie, Manchester previews
July 9 - Norden Farm, Maidenhead
July 16 - Firestation Windsor (+ Ali Cook) NEW
July 21 - Eastgate Peebles

The AK47 from Tescos - comics by kids

The Adventures Of The AK47 from Tescos, and other comics by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses in the past week or two:

These examples comes from schools in Wales, England and Dublin. I was going to say from Pembroke to Ireland and all points inbetween, but all points inbetween Pembroke and Dublin are underwater and that would be probably unfeasible.



See more of my comics by kids at the Masterclass Gallery. I travel all round the country, nay the world, teaching kids how to draw comics. By the end of a morning or afternoon they've produced a comic to take home and I've drawn their faces. If you'd like me to come to teach your kids, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

RECOMMENDED COMIC BOOKS & GRAPHIC NOVELS for Comic Art Masterclass students, teachers and librarians

Tweet

Announcing The Manchester Sitcom Trials

Announcing the second Annual Manchester Sitcom Trials

Have we found the new Fawlty? The new Father Ted? The new Phoenix Nights? You decide. In The Sitcom Trials.

The best new comedy writers in the country are about to compete to create the next great situation comedy in The 10th Anniversary Season of The Sitcom Trials.

Thousands will enter, only one can win. Could it be you?

Anyone can send in a sitcom script, it costs nothing to enter. The shortlisted finalists will have their sitcoms staged at Manchester's LassFest Comedy Festival on July 2nd

So, could you be the next great sitcom writer? Now's the chance to find out. The competition is open for entries now at sitcomtrials.co.uk

Will we find the new Brent? The new Bilko? The new Blackadder?
You decide.

THE SITCOM TRIALS - the Future of Sitcom, in your hands.




Scripts are invited for the Manchester Sitcom Trials, to be performed at the Lass O'Gowrie Manchester on July 2 2011.

THE BRIEF for submission to The Sitcom Trials.

The Sitcom Trials wants situation comedy scripts that a small group of actors can perform in a live environment with minimal stage in front of an audience, who will hopefully laugh. Ideally these sitcoms will be so marvellous that the TV & radio industry representatives in the audience will snap them up immediately.

THE FORMAT:

Your script must have a first 'half' of less than 8 minutes
This first half should end in a cliffhanger, or something that leaves
the audience wanting more.

It must then have a final scene of 2 or 3 minutes long. This will be
performed only if your sitcom is the winner on the night

Your script must have NO MORE THAN 4 CHARACTERS. Ideally 2 boys 2 girls.
If you can write a script with just 2 or 3 characters, all the better.

The sitcoms we are to test out in our regular pub theatre shows with an eye to them being developed for TV must be
PERFORMABLE LIVE (ie no filmed or location inserts)
&
ON ONE MINIMAL SET.

Think in terms of a radio script.


WRITER-PERFORMERS - INCLUDE YOUTUBE DEMO

We are particularly interested to hear from writer-performers, especially
those with an on-stage track record (eg Edinburgh) who would present their
own sitcom as a self contained package. To demonstrate your live potential we would need to see a video, ideally a link to a YouTube video, which we can judge alongside the script. Please include the video link as part of the script.

UPLOAD SCRIPTS TO THE FILES:

Upload your entries to the appropriate folder in the files section of the egroup. You will need to join the free egroup to do so:
http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SitsVac/files/

Deadline for entries - June 19 2011
Deadline for voting - June 26 2011

VOTING

All members of the SitsVac egroup, you included, will be invited to read, review, and vote on all scripts in contention. Vote YES, MAYBE or NO as to each one's potential and add a short one paragraph review. Send reviews to the Sits Vac TV group message board: http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SitsVac/

Vote at polls: http://tv.groups.yahoo.com/group/SitsVac/polls

Writers are welcome to vote on their own scripts.

Votes are then totalled thus; Yes = 2 points, Maybe = 1 point, No = minus -1 point. This way we draw up a shortlist for a script reading, from which we select the items to go into the stage show.

Any questions, ask the egroup so we can all benefit from the answers.

Happy scribbling

Kev F Sutherland
Producer and Presenter
THE SITCOM TRIALS
http://sitcomtrials.co.uk
 
http://comicfestival.co.uk

The Gadget Show

And today I did The Gadget Show.



I was drawing caricatures, inc presenter Suzi Perry (above), on the uDraw, a brilliant little graphics tablet that works with a Wii and that I'm having fun playing with. If I'm lucky I may get the chance to appear on some other things with my Wii toy.

Professor Hazel

This is a very exclusive video, produced as a special commission and Unlisted on Youtube. It's a celebration for Hazel Hall who has just been made a Professor, getting the Chair in Social Informatics. Enjoy. Via @hazelh

Sawing A Sock In Half

Thanks to Alexandra 'Austin' Muirhead, who'd travelled all the way from Canada to be in the audience for the Scottish Falsetto Socks' show at the Glagsow Britannia, we now have a glimpse on camera for the first time of our legendary Sawing A Sock In Half routine.



The Socks touring gigs have been going well, with ups and downs with audiences (ilton Keynes diasppointingly low, Stafford, Stroud, Leicester, Redditch & Glasgow all good, with some of the best door takings of any tour so far. Let's hope this weekend at far-flung Banchory delivers the goods. This week also sees two ghost gigs, Theatr Breicheiniog which should have been tonight but was an error in my diary (now happening in the Autumn) and Bristol Thunderbolt which was a double booking on their part.

Coming up soon is Leicester Square Theatre London. I must get everyone in the TV industry invited. I guess that's one of today's tasks. Onwards and upwards.

memo to self re email on ipod

(Ignore. I'm sending this to myself so I can read it on my ipod, since it concerns not being able to get email on my ipod)

In order to resolve your issue related to your iPhone, you first need to enable IMAP first.



To enable IMAP please login to the Virgin Media Webmail serviceby clicking on the following link:



https://mail.virgin.net



Please enter the first part of your email address ‘username’ (e.g. richard.branson) and choose the appropriate domain name (e.g. ‘@virgin.net’ or ‘@virginmedia.com’) from the drop down menu. Enter the password for the email address and then click on sign in button.

NB (6pm Tues) just been trying that and I get "we're having trouble with our server try later". Let's face it, a Virgin media virgin.net customer will never be able to get their email on an iPod)


Then click on ‘Settings’ at the top right hand corner of the Webmail interface.



Click Forwarding and POP/IMAP.



Select Enable IMAP.



After you have done that you need to use these setting while configuring your Blackberry:



Outgoing mail (SMTP): smtp.virgin.net or smtp.virginmedia.com



Incoming mail (POP3): imap4.virgin.net or imap.virginmedia.com



For further assistance you can contact our Chat- Remote Assistance, where our Technical Support Agents will access your computer remotely and help you accordingly. Please click on the link given below:



https://national.virginmedia.com/inquiero/start



Please enter the first part of your email address ‘username’ (e.g. richard.branson) and choose the appropriate domain name (e.g. ‘@virgin.net’ or ‘@virginmedia.com’) from the drop down menu. Enter the password for the email address and then click on sign in button. Then click on the ‘chat online’ button under ‘Chat- Remote Assistance’.



If you need any further assistance please contact us again, or visit the following address:



http://www.virgin.net/helpme/

Many Thanks

Gowhar

Virgin Media National Support

Virgin Media National - broadband and phone for all - http://www.virgin.net/allyours/broadband/

Good gig bad gig

Last night's gig in Milton Keynes was a mixed bag. The gig itself was great, the audience asked for and got an encore, I signed autographs afterwards, and the laughs came solidly throughout with some top improv and adlibs including an off-the-top-of-the-head musical (and for the life of me I can't remember what TV show we were improvising, it goes a bit fast like that sometimes).

Bad the bad news was the money. This 90 minute show with interval was at Madcap Arts in Wolverton, Milton Keynes, a favourite venue which the Socks were playing for the fourth time (don't think we've played any regional theatre that often). And because we've been so popular there in the past and have been guaranteed a sizeable audience, I agreed to do this on a 70/30 doorsplit.

We ended up playing to our smallest audience on any of our tour dates so far. A little over 20 people in the theatre, of whom only 15 were paying customers. When I'd arrived I learned that there were only 5 advance sales. How on earth had this happened?

It had happened because the management had changed in between our booking the show and the show taking place. And whereas the previous manager, Caroline, had been a major Socks fan who took it upon herself to spread the world and ensure every Socks fan in the area knew we were coming, the new staff had no idea who we were, hadn't put our tickets on sale online, and didn't know our requirements.

We ended up with our sound cues being played in by Billy, the 14 year old work experience boy (who got his own round of applause & bow at the end and was a delight, and running gag, throughout).

And to top it off, knowing that my share of 15 tickets wasn't going to be much, they tried to rip me off by saying they'd been told it was to be a "60/40 split in favour of the venue". A 60/40 split in favour of the venue? Who agrees to a 60/40 split in favour of the venue?? It was to be a 70/30 split in favour of the act, that's how it always works! In the end, after my protests, they split it to 50/50 which they said was the best they could do because the ultimate decision maker wasn't there and will have to be complained to on Monday.

So I end up driving 5 hours there and back and performing a 90 minute show, and an encore, for 10 per cent of the money I've been getting for the other shows on the tour. Tonight's takings didn't quite cover the petrol for tonight's journey, and if I subtract the cost of flyers and posters, postage, and the work I could have done in the time I lost, we can call last night's show a loss. The punters went away happy, which is a good thing, but I am thinking very carefully about whether I should be gambling on any other doorsplits for the next tour. (That said, all the doorsplits on this tour and the last, to date, have paid better than any theatre guarantees, so this was the one gamble that failed, for reasons that in retorospect are quite clear and that I couldn't have anticipated).

Oh yes, and one last thing - food. I hadn't eaten since lunchtime, but my show started quite early at 7.30, so I was away by just after 9.30 and I'd spotted a chip shop on the way in. I love a big bit of fish, the perfect thing after a show.

Guess what I found in Wolverton? Only the first chip shop in the country to close BEFORE 9.30? ON A SATURDAY??? So I ended up driving home dining on an egg mayo bap, a veg samosa and a bag of crisps from a petrol station. Yum bloody yum.

Touring, eh? Who'd do it? To cheer us all up, and as a reminder of a more enjoyable all-round gig, here's a photo of the Socks on stage at Stafford Gatehouse. Great backdrop, great gig (great doorsplit on top of guarantee, btw).