More ranting about the BBC

Hev and me outside BBC New Broadcasting House, attending a recording of The Real Comedy Controllers which will be on 4Extra next month. And it was this week that I had a bit of a BBC rant on Facebook. It went like this.

Jan 23rd: A thread I've joined in with prompted my first rant of the day. I have a friend who, thanks to a post about not paying his TV licence, is now the cheerleader for libertarians who've joined the discussion piling in with their hate for the BBC. I was raised by and love the BBC. Somehow we've reached a state where, squeezed between millennials who don't watch TV, and an older generation who've been led by Murdoch and others to believe £150 a year for the BBC is an unfair poll tax, while £50 a month for Sky is some sort of benevolent donation, we're facing a BBC that won't just dwindle and die, it'll be actively destroyed by the people it raised. Ironically many of the people saying these things have holidayed abroad and seen other countries TV, especially the States, and think somehow that would be better than what we've had in Britain all my life. Well I hope you enjoy your radio landscape that's all Heart and TalkSport, TV that gives you 30 ad free minutes out of every hour, and the majority of that TV being run by the people who gave us The Sun and Fox News. Good luck with that. I'm happy to have been one of the generation who'll be able to say we lived through The BBC Years, 1922 - 2022. RIP.

What'll happen to PBS in the States when the BBC has died? For 40 years PBS had been made up of cheap talk shows interspersed with BBC dramas. I guess now it'll be cheap talk shows interspersed with cheaper talk shows.

Oh yes, there's always Netflix. That commercially unsustainable bubble that will never burst, cos what commercially unsustainable bubble has ever burst before?



The post prompted 140 odd likes, and some good comments. Here's a selection.

Leonard O'Grady American TV consists of an endless torrent of horseshit pumped out under pressure and heavily laced with ads that make about 40% of runtime, with a few pearls amongst the dross. All for about $200 per month. It's unspeakably tiresome and we're cutting our cable- I seriously miss the Beeb and never cease to be amazed by the breath and depth of their content by comparison- probably the best value for money for a TV package anywhere.

Stuart Robinson I think what has also got a lot of people questioning the licence fee is the increasingly obvious right wing/anti-left bias in BBC news coverage.

Kev Sutherland If all they watch is the news, and they think the BBC is the most biased of that news, then I'd be intrigued to see what other news they're getting. TalkSport? Sky News? Al Jazeera? Or could it be the echo chamber of their like-minded friends on social media, which leads right wingers to think the BBC is left wing, and left-wingers to think the BBC is right wing. Always has (read about Harold Wilson v the BBC in the 60s) always has (read about Thatcher v the BBC in the 80s) always has (read about Churchill v the BBC in the 1920s - yes nearly 100 years ago the government set the tradition of the incumbent thinking the BBC has got it in for them) always has (read about Blair v the BBC in the 2000s) and always will do.

Jason Cobley Look at the BBC objectively and you see that the news does have a right wing bias. Problem is, we don't seems to have a broadcaster of news in this country that doesn't.

Mike Donaldson Funnily enough, I read day in, day out on other media websites that the BBC has a left-wing bias.

Will Dawbarn It's regularly accused of both right wing and left wing bias. Which I think suggests it does a pretty good job of being neutral.

Jason Cobley The issue with Question Time isn't the guest balance. It's the way that Dimbleby repeatedly cuts off left wing guests and gives more latitude to others, often reinforcing them with his own opinions. He also favours more right wing questioners from the audience. It's demonstrable. You only need to watch it to see it.

Kev Sutherland I feel that would be bias confirmation on your part Jason, but then I would say that. Only the stats, collected objectively, are worth a damn. We have to avoid "facts based on opinions". So far in this thread we've had stats showing the Beeb is right wing and stats (albeit from a site called "BiasedBBC") showing the Beeb is left wing. We need more facts, and must beware only liking those that support our own thesis. Every time, whoever we are. (And remember, I'm me, and think I'm always right!)

Mike Donaldson Here's an article by Allison Pearson from two years ago that quotes a number of Telegraph readers who believe that QT is far too left-wing. It does look like there's at least some bias-confirmation at work... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Allison-Pearson-Baying...


Neil Brand Well said, Kev...

Alan Francis I like the BBC, i've worked for it and i'my grateful for opportunities it has given me. It has let itself down in its news bias recently, and I don't like the constant fawning over the Royal Family. But it still remains the best public broadcaster anywhere in the world. We should cherish it.

Jonathan T Jester I think the BBC needs SERIOUS reform. I also think a private public partnership can work as in Channel 4, I wouldn't want it scrapped. I would want to see it stop producing "commercial" work. I would like to see the script unit reintroduced.

Kev Sutherland Can you have one without the other? Train people to write Eastenders and Not Going Out, but don't produce Eastenders or Not Going Out?

Frank Plowright There's what's in effect a script unit in Scotland with the Comedy Unit, and the jobbies they produce is appalling. Occasionally quality like Still Game and Burnistoun (in places) slips out, but having a script unit is not a guarantee.

Kev Sutherland You can't grow flowers without manure.

Sam Morgan Don't forget the BBC's amazing radio output. The licence fee is truly brilliant value for money!

Jonathan T Jester its not amazing.. we have ONE spoken word channel and about 7 music channels, and one repetitive superficial news radio channel. I think it is a poor return.

Sam Morgan Actually 2 national spoken word stations (5Live) + hundreds of local radio stations + Welsh speaking, Urdu, Celtic, etc. All without adverts. All 24 hours. What WOULD it take to be amazing in your opinion?

Stephen Waller Quality ad-free TV, Radio and Web services for £150 a year is a ridiculous bargain. I am constantly baffled why people have it in for the Beeb.

Lynne McGregor I think it's because they have no choice in the matter. Even if you only watch live sport on Sky and nothing else you are still forced to pay for the BBC. If £150 truly is 'ridiculously great value' people will pay. If they don't...well that also tells you something. It's like being asked to pay car tax when you don't drive a car.

Rocio Cano Do you have kids? Then your kids will have benefitted massively from BBC content. And I'm not even going into outreach ane training programmes

Wullie Russell Lynne McGregor: your argument is weird. Who would pay any tax if they didn't have to?

Stuart Mitchell I view that the BBC as one of those things a bit like my taxes going to pay for things that it's unlikely I'll see direct value for but which improves society on the whole. TBH I would pay my license fee for radio 4 alone. Also to those who say they never watch any BBC, do you also never listen to the radio stations either, also worth remembering without the BBC their would be 2 effects on your Sky, 1) without the BBC to go up against the quality would drop and 2) your prices would go up to cover the general infrastructure payments the BBC currently cover.


Vicky Stonebridge i certainly haven't been raised by Murdoch. I just believe in a sovereign nations right to self determination, which was woefully undermined by both the BBC and the Newspapers ( murdoch & otherwise ) at the time. I wasn't raised on the BBC there are chunks of my youth when no Telly reception was available, or I chose not to watch it. Which is why it really is no hardship to break the addiction.

Kev Sutherland I appreciate I come from a 50-something, England-based, TV-and-radio addicted background so I am inevitably biased. It may only be my Baby Boomer generation that was so cossetted by the BBC. I listened solely to Radio 1 through my teens, graduated to Radio 4 in my 20s, and now have a radio diet of Radios 6, 4, 4 Extra and 2, with a tiny proportion of podcasts. I have still, to this day, never been able to tolerate radio with adverts - not just because of the ads, but because of the quality of the stations. Yes even XFM, or whatever it's called itself since people outside London have been able to hear it.

Sean Mason The BBC doesn't just create quality drama, comedy, entertainment and documentaries. It doesn't just create a wide range of radio output on a global, national and local level. It doesn't just provide more opportunities for new writers and talent than any other organisation. It also develops technology and sets trends in production. The iPlayer changed the way we watch TV. I had Sky for two years. Apart from one or two shows I don't miss it. I certainly don't miss the 57 quid hole in my pocket each month.

Is the BBC perfect? No. Is it vital and worth fighting for? Always.

Darryl Cunningham Libertarians are idiots. Fact.

Leonard O'Grady My wife put it best: "Republicans who want to smoke weed"

Dave Shelton The BBC, for all its faults, is a marvel, a wonder, and a bargain.

Ian Robinson "The BBC should be more like Netflix" Like this, perhaps?

Edward Knight The best programmes on ITV were The South Bank Show, The World at War and University Challenge.

Hazel Hall Today I have been treated superbly by an NHS doctor and swam in in a council-funded swimming pool for a minimal charge. I am now about to watch BBC television, and will go to bed with a book borrowed from the public library. For this I pay taxes and a TV licence fee - worth every penny.

Boabie Menzies  I once was a huge backer of the BBC, and especially defended them for their natural history programming, but they're lying, corrupt toads. Fuck them.

Andy Stenhouse I love and watch a lot of BBC (Sherlock, Dr. Who never miss) but it is the news bias that is diving me 'mentol' BBC News has become the propaganda wing of the F##king Tory Party! Grrrrrrrrr

Wil Hodgson Because now you can find a news source to suit any political agenda you already have, many people get the arsehole with anything remotely balanced because it suits them better to bury their head in a load of tin foil hat shit. The BBC is neither left nor right wing really but because it doesn't lean too far one way, right wingers think it's left wing and left wingers think it's right wing. It can't win basically

Gary Smith Abso-f***ing-lutely!!! Well said Kev!

Raymond-Kym Suttle Perfectly stated! I especially love your astute observation about £150 p.a. vs £50 a month.

Ian Ellery I still pay my TV licence even though I live in Malta, because I watch iPlayer via a VPN service.

Peter Cartoon My favourite comment was on a phone in on radio 2. The caller said they should do away with the BBC as she only listened to Radio 1 and that was a commercial station.

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.



2017 TOUR
Feb 15 - Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre Studio 
Feb 17 & 18 6.50pm - Kayal, Leicester Comedy Fest
March 9 - Aberystwyth Arts Centre
March 15 & 16 - Dram! Glasgow Com Fest
March 23 - The Bill Murray, London
Apr 6 - Victoria Theatre Halifax
Apr 8 - Rondo Bath 
Apr 13 - Hexham Queen's Hall 
Apr 22 - Swindon Arts 
Apr 27 - Stroud Subscription Rooms 
Apr 28 - Merlin Theatre Frome 
Apr 29 - Perth Concert Hall 
May 1 - Chiddingstone Castle Kent 
May 5 - Artrix Bromsgrove
May 6 - Stafford Gatehouse
May 13 (4.30pm) & May 14 (5.30pm) Komedia Brighton
May 19 - Carriageworks Leeds
May 26 - Aberdeen May Fest
June 2 - Eden Ct Inverness
June 15 - Crescent Arts, Belfast
June 17 - Dalkey Festival, Dublin
June 23 - Hertford Comedy Festival
June 24 - Ludlow Fringe

How I overpaid £300 to EE (and why I won't get it back)

How did I over pay EE by £300? By not paying attention.

If, like me, you travel abroad a lot, you'll have got used to paying a little extra to make your phone work while you're over there. Most of the time I pay £43 a month to keep my iPhone working on EE, which works out better than the old Pay As You Go plan I used to have.

It got a bit nut-nut when I went to Geneva in October 2015, when my bill came to £92 - double what it would usually be -  but I think that was because I logged into a French network when I landed, then had to log in again to a Swiss network once I reached my destination. I don't know, I can't see my statement that far back.

Whatever, my statement reverted to its usual £43 in November 2015 and I thought no more of it. That month I spent 4 days in Jordan, so I wasn't surprised when my December bill was £99. I figure a few days of travel makes my bill double, I'll look into it someday. And then I don't bother.



After that came 2016 when, with a trip to Ireland in January, another in May, and a trip to Romania in March, I wasn't overly surprised when an EE bill came through at £70 a time. And I stopped looking at the amount of my EE bill. Not being a paper bill, merely a text from EE which didn't mention a figure, and an item on my Bank statement which didn't draw attention to itself amidst the dozens that go out every month, I didn't register consciously how much my monthly bill was.

Until this month, when I chanced to look back over the year and realised that, since January 2016, I've been paying a minimum of £70 a month. Every month. Not the £43 I signed up to. But nearly double that. Every month. It's peaked at £79, and not gone as high as those £90+ bills. But £70 a month, even when I've not left the country?

So I rang them up.

It transpires I've been paying for the "120 mins to the UK from anywhere" and "100 texts to the UK from anywhere" that I added during my 4 day trip to Jordan in November 2015, SINCE my 4 day trip to Jordan in November 2015.

That's £21.67 plus VAT, 13 times over. That's over £300.

If you'd like to read the whole Live Text conversation I just had with them, it's below in its full glory. Meanwhile, caveat emptor. Be very careful when buying any phone add-ons abroad. You need to set an end date - and check those bills every month!



Live Chat to EE Jan 24 2017

Me: Hi, just been on phone to you guys. Been overpaying approx £26 every month since Oct 2015. They have now removed "100 anywhere to UK roaming texts" and "120 anywhere to UK roaming mins add on". These didn't cancel after I added them in October 2015. I was paying £43 a month until Sept 2015. Then £92 Oct 15, £43 Nov 15, £99 Dec 15, and since Jan 16 it has been £70-£75 every month! Why didn't this cancel, and can I get a rebate?

I was in Switzerland for 3 days Oct 2015, then Jordan for 4 days Nov 2015. Ireland 2 days Jan 2016, Bucharest 3 days March 2016, then in the UK until Paris 2 days Nov 2016.

Also when I did go abroad (Nov 2016) I paid an extra £2.50 a day, which I clearly didn't need to, but was texted by EE saying I did need.

EE  Sure, I will help you with that. I really apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced.

EE I can see two bundles were added for 100 text and 120 minutes from  16/11/2015

Me: Yes, 16/11/15 was 4 days in Romania.

Sorry Jordan, 4 days in Jordan.

EE Yes, I can see you also went to abroad in EU and you added a bundle for £3/day for 500MB of data per day. Which is a separate bundle.

Me: Yes, I've added that daily payment for visits in 2016 to Ireland, Romania (Mar 16) and France (Nov 16).

EE Kev, would also like to inform you that the bundle for 120 minutes and 100 text was  added from your end via self serve and you didn't add the end date for this bundle.  

Me: I didn't know it needed an end date. It's never needed one before.

EE I really apologize however, as the bundle was added from your end and you also didn't contact EE ever. I'm afraid but we wont be able to give you the refund for all the charges.

Me: Why did EE tell me I needed to pay £3 a day when I went to Europe?

EE That's because the data that you are getting in your plan doesn't cover you for roaming in EU.

Me: Why charge me every month for these 120 & 100 items? Surely they were a one-off amount of items, and were never used?

EE The data only work in UK and for EU there is a separate data bundle which you added.

Me: The "120 mins from anywhere" & other one, were added while in Jordan, yes?

EE I do understand that you never used it however, we generate the bills every month. If you would have contact us earlier, we would have get that checked.

Me: So there's nothing I can do about these overpayments for unused items?

EE Kev, I really apologize however, we have just reviewed your account and as the bundles were added from your end I'm afraid but we cannot rebate the amount. Sorry Kev.

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.

12 Good Books About Comedy

I've just finished reading Kliph Nesteroff's excellent book The Comedians and would like to recommend it to any comedy fans. It takes you through the history of, mostly, stand-up comedy in the States, from the vaudeville of the turn of the 20th century up to the present day. 

If you've ever wanted to know the relationship between stand up comedy and the Mafia (how any comedian working in the USA in the 30s thru the 60s was, de facto, working for the mob), or get the inside guff on everything from Jerry Lewis's failed chat show, Bud Abbott's dad's midget circus, or the prodigious endowment of Milton Berle, this book has it all. He's conducted extensive interviews, and read through every other book and Variety article there is, to give the most comprehensive insight into this world. 

This is demonstrated best by the anecdote of Joe E Ross's untimely death, culled from various sources and told in an unreliable narrator fashion by half a dozen of his contemporaries:

Bobby Ramsen: He expired onstage.

Hank Garrett: Joe E Ross died performing.

Sammy Shore: And that was it.

Bobby Ramsen: His wife went to get his pay.

Steve Rossi: His agent went to get the money.

Hank Garrett: This hooker went to collect the hundred dollars.

Chuck McCann: I went and got his check.

Will Jordan: Chuck says he got the check.

Hank Garrett: It was supposed to be for a hundred, but they only gave her fifty.

Steve Rossi: They said, "Wait a minute. This is only half the amount!"

Hank Garrett: The booker said, "Yeah, well... he never finished the show."

This book led me to wonder, are there any books that offer equivalent insight into the, very different, British comedy scene? Here are a few that I've read (and a couple I haven't yet). Can you recommend any more?

Ha Bloody Ha - William Cook 

This remains the most insightful book I've read about British comedians, as a result of being purely interviews with the then top comedians in the country, broken down into various categories including First Gigs, Worst Gigs etc. Very much from the horses' mouths, and very much covering the bases, as up to date as one can be in a book from 1994. (While Googling the blog post, I have found William Cook's own suggestions, from 2006, of the Ten Best Books About Comedians )

From Fringe To Flying Circus - Roger Wilmut

I read this when it came out in paperback, circa 1981, and it was at the time alone on the shelves as a book about comedy. Until this time comedy, and indeed the media, had not been considered the stuff of academic study and, with the exception of Clive James' TV reviews and Woody Allen's humourous essays, I don't remember anyone else writing seriously about comedy. Until this point I hadn't realised all these comedians, from Cook & Moore through Monty Python and The Goodies, had come via Oxbridge.

Footlights - Robert Hewison

Accompanied by a BBC documentary, which I still have on VHS somewhere, in which 100 year old student skits and songs are revisited by a very young Fry, Laurie, Slattery and friends, this only has a marginal overlap with the world of stand-up, but again is a revelation for anyone who'd previously thought Cambridge comedy began with Peter Cook & Jonathan Miller (Jimmy Edwards, Stinker Murdoch & Richard Baker are among many surprising alumni).

The Edinburgh Fringe - Alistair Moffat

How I Escaped My Certain Fate - Stewart Lee

Banquo Before Breakfast: 50 Years Of The Edinburgh Festival - Iain Crawford

Crying With Laughter - Bob Monkhouse

And a few I haven't read but plan to seek out, when I have the reading time*.

Didn't You Kill My Mother In Law? - Roger Wilmut

The Comedy Store - William Cook 

Beyond A Joke - Bruce Dessau

Off The Mic - Deborah Frances-White 

Any more I should put on the reading list?

* What's the reading time? Asking that very question just brought this book up on Google. 

2017 TOUR
Feb 15 - Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre Studio 
Feb 17 & 18 6.50pm - Kayal, Leicester Comedy Fest
March 9 - Aberystwyth Arts Centre
March 15 & 16 - Dram! Glasgow Com Fest
March 23 - The Bill Murray, London
Apr 6 - Victoria Theatre Halifax
Apr 8 - Rondo Bath 
Apr 13 - Hexham Queen's Hall 
Apr 22 - Swindon Arts 
Apr 27 - Stroud Subscription Rooms 
Apr 28 - Merlin Theatre Frome 
Apr 29 - Perth Concert Hall 
May 1 - Chiddingstone Castle Kent 
May 5 - Artrix Bromsgrove
May 6 - Stafford Gatehouse
May 13 (4.30pm) & May 14 (5.30pm) Komedia Brighton
May 19 - Carriageworks Leeds
May 26 - Aberdeen May Fest
June 2 - Eden Ct Inverness
June 15 - Crescent Arts, Belfast
June 17 - Dalkey Festival, Dublin
June 23 - Hertford Comedy Festival
June 24 - Ludlow Fringe

A month at my desk makes for a boring diary

Sometimes this blog's full of stuff, the comics I've made in schools, the interesting places we've visited, videos by the Socks, the exciting noteworthy stuff of life. Then you'll get a month like this where I spend most of the time at my desk and I'm either too busy to write, or haven't found anything sufficiently remarkable. Look at me there, colouring comic strip pages on the laptop. The big screen Mac, which dates back to 2005, hasn't been used for a couple of years now and might be too slow for me to ever use again. (Thinks, I wonder if I can get it updated?) Anyhoo, here for posterity is what I've been up to in January.



Got my DBS certificate updated. This, the Disclosure & Barring Service provided by the police, is something everyone needs to work in schools, and I've had one since 2003, when it was called a CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) certificate. I'm assuming most people who'd need it would be freelance. Which is why, in their infinite wisdom, the powers that be have decided you can't apply for one as a freelance. You need to go through your employer. Which, if you're self employed, is you. Which you can't do.

Until recently it was a certificate that lasted three years then needed renewing. In the past I've had it sorted by an arts agency who, in the intervening years, lost their arts funding, so they didn't exist when it came time to renew. Then I got it done by a school I worked at regularly. Three years later they'd been knocked down and rebuilt as an academy and I didn't work there any more.

In 2016 a school (who shall remain nameless*)  (*it's not Kings, pictured above) was the first to ask me if my DBS had "portability". I had no idea what portability meant. They explained that it's the new way the DBS works. You apply once, then convert it to "portability" on the gov.uk site and, for an annual renewal fee, your DBS will remain updated. No more need to keep finding an employer to re-apply from scratch. Hoorah. Even better this school (who shall remain nameless) offered to process my application for my new DBS, last July when I was doing a series of classes for them. So we arranged  day for me to visit and they'd do it. I turned up, they were too busy, they couldn't do it then. Then it was end of term, then I forgot about it for a term. Then my DBS ran out, so I wasn't covered any more, so I asked this school (who shall remain nameless) if they'd follow up their kind offer of last summer and process my application for me. They said they were too busy and couldn't do it until I come and do some more classes for them in the summer, leaving me uncovered by DBS for over six months. They shall remain nameless.

So I had to find an agency that would process my application. And, after phoning up employment agency after employment agency, who offer DBS certficate processing, but only to people who are signed into their books (which, not wanting to work as an office temp or supply teacher, I'm not), I finally found Education People who, for just twice the cost of doing it through the school (who are remaining nameless) did it for me in under ten minutes. I am now covered. That was painless enough.

Also this week I got my car serviced, and sat in the reception area at Robins & Day Peugeot with my laptop & graphics tablet, and got two pages of Book Of Esther coloured while I was waiting.

I've been busy booking school visits for the year - June and July are very full already, and May's getting there. They start in earnest next month, and it looks like being a bumper year since I'm not doing Edinburgh this year. On Sunday afternoon I wrote 10 songs for a Book of Esther musical.

I've had a bit of bill chasing to do. A festival owes me £700 since July, a school in Ireland owes for €475 from October (don't know whether the change in exchange rate will have made me better or worse off in the time I've been waiting). And I thought to chase up a Glasgow school from December this week, noticing that last time I'd worked for them they'd taken 4 months to pay me. So I rang them. Good job too. The woman in accounts claimed not to have even had my invoice yet (I'd sent it before I visited). Given that this was a three-day visit, it's quite a chunk that I'm waiting for. I look forward to getting it in April.

Last night we went to The Colston Hall to see Simon Callow present three Charlie Chaplin shorts, very entertaining, then out to eat with Sarah Menage, whose new novel we now have a first glimpse copy of.

Last weekend we went to Exeter, went round the Museum, shopped and saw nostalgic sights (above, The Royal Clarence Hotel, recently burned down sadly). The weekend before we went to Cardiff. Managed a day trip to Wells in there somewhere, and Bristol a fair few times. Living the life. On Wednesday we had an electrician round who fixed the lights in the kitchen and reconnected the porch light.



And I've made time for reading too, having got through Kliph Nesteroff's The Comedians and Alan Partridge's Nomad, both from my Christmas present pile. I am currently part way through How Musicals Work (started this week), The Infallible History of Christianity (started in November), Trumbo (also started in November) and Robert McKee's Story (started last January). I am a bad reader, only really getting any reading done when I have a long plane or train journey. This whole reading in bed in the morning thing will soon bite the dust when the school visits and Sock gigs resume next month.

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.



2017 TOUR
Feb 15 - Buxton Pavilion Arts Centre Studio 
Feb 17 & 18 6.50pm - Kayal, Leicester Comedy Fest
March 9 - Aberystwyth Arts Centre
March 15 & 16 - Dram! Glasgow Com Fest
March 23 - The Bill Murray, London
Apr 6 - Victoria Theatre Halifax
Apr 8 - Rondo Bath 
Apr 13 - Hexham Queen's Hall 
Apr 22 - Swindon Arts 
Apr 27 - Stroud Subscription Rooms 
Apr 28 - Merlin Theatre Frome 
Apr 29 - Perth Concert Hall 
May 1 - Chiddingstone Castle Kent 
May 5 - Artrix Bromsgrove
May 6 - Stafford Gatehouse
May 13 (4.30pm) & May 14 (5.30pm) Komedia Brighton
May 19 - Carriageworks Leeds
May 26 - Aberdeen May Fest
June 2 - Eden Ct Inverness
June 15 - Crescent Arts, Belfast
June 17 - Dalkey Festival, Dublin
June 23 - Hertford Comedy Festival
June 24 - Ludlow Fringe

Anatomy of a front cover

As a finishing touch, having finally completed the colouring for Book Of Esther, I produced a front cover today. It's something I haven't done for a while and I wanted to make it work right as a graphic novel cover.



My research began by looking, amongst other reference, at Paste magazine's 100 Best Comic Covers of the last few years. And it's very interesting to see the tropes, or are they cliches, that dominate these covers. Predominant was the character standing centrally in the middle of the cover. These symetrical compositions made up about half of the 100 covers. Was it always like that? When I cast my mind back to the comic covers of my childhood, I'm struggling to think of any memorable covers which revolved around the central character standing there slap bang in the middle of the page. But check this bunch out.

You could have your character small, low or high, but always slap bang in the middle.

You could have your character large, as long as they're slap bang in the middle of the page.

Or you can have your character's face filling the whole cover, just so long as it's slap bang in the middle of... well you get the idea.

I'm not one to argue with fashion, so here was my first biro design...

From which I then stuck together a version made of grabs from the comic's pages...

And then I drew it, the various components changing as they always do when you get stuck into them. Then when I put the various parts together, the figures of Shaashgaz and Xerxes that I'd intended to go at the front, didn't look right, so I left them out. Here they are, fresh from the cutting room floor.

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.

Esther coloured

Hallelujah, let everyone rejoice. On Thursday night (Jan 19th) I finally got all of The Book Of Esther coloured. Well, look more cheerful about it you two.

It really has been a mammoth task, taking nearly as long to colour each page as it took to pencil or ink them. I started by trying to keep the colours simple, but as I progressed it was clear that I was only happy when I was adding a layer of shadows and a layer of glows. And I couldn't fill any character with just flat colour, as one might with The Simpsons or most Beano strips, I had to give them all a white edge to sculpt the colour of their faces. And the outlines of the backgrounds, I couldn't just leave those in black, I had to go over and colourise all those lines to knock them back further. And before I knew where I was, I was doing a maximum of two pages a day. I think I managed three pages one day, but for many others I was only getting one page done, through the knock on effect of other work.

But hooray, now it's done. And, though I haven't quoted on it as part of the original job, of course I'm now going to have to design a front cover. But that notwithstanding, I have a completed job I can deliver to my editors.



Oh yes, talking of distractions, in the meantime (ie last Sunday afternoon) I was inspired to turn the Book Of Esther into a musical. I wrote not one, not two, but ten songs - lyrics and a rough demo recording with vocal only - for the musical, taking us chronologically through the first half of the story.

The songs so far are: Title Song, Party Like It's 460BC, Xerxes & Vashti, Bride Wanted, I Could Be Queen, Not Everyone's Good, I'll Wait, Pampering Song, Wedding Song and Teresh & Bigthana. We definitely have the new Jesus Christ Superstar on our hands here. (Hev got me a book for Christmas about how to write a musical. I've not started reading it yet.)

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.