Monday 27 May 2019

Celebs, Russell Crowe, bus trip - dream diary


Dream:

On a big school bus trip, which had started as being at a festival, in tents, then in a big building like a grandstand or auditorium. Met Iain Morris, with reference being made to how tall he is. Lots of other comedians and TV people, among whom I was an equal. We were playing football in a large tent or marquee, and this was a special VIP area.

Later on the bus a boy wants to sit next to me, in my seat at the front but I say there’s not room cos I’m trying to write and draw and need elbow room. He says his name is Gay. I eventually let him sit down. Then I have to go off and get something further back on the bus which is like a big open plan classroom inside, like our art rooms at school. 

I have to close up a box, which folds in half, and on the top of it there are little tiny models tables and chairs, like a floor plan of the Titanic or the inside of a church. Of course when I fold it they go everywhere, but I am able to reset, unfold it and try again. Then a cross in some sort of container falls over and amber coloured opaque gunk comes out. I go to back of bus to wash this gunk off my hands. I am in the clothes-making area where girls are making dresses. I use the first tap, which is a nozzle on the end of a wire-wound hose, to wash my hands, but there’s no sink under it so I’m making a mess everywhere. I go off to find a better hose with a sink. Dream fizzles out here.

Earlier we established this bus trip is taking us up north. Gay had started in Cork or Galway, though had no Irish accent, and we are going along rural Irish or Scottish looking roads.

Previous night’s dream: I have to leave my office (Copse Rd) so I go upstairs to reclaim the table I used to have in my old studio which was in the top floor of an old building, meant to be a company like Kempstons. There are three young people, 20 somethings, who have taken my desk space.  I go ff despondent but on the staircase am met by my boss, played by Russell Crowe, and an inneffectual sidekick, who say they’ll fight for me, and they say I should have my desk back. The other people in the company are two women who are adamant I won’t get desk, but they ask Russell Crowe & assistant to make an offer. Assistant hands over piece of paper with their demands on. They are asking that I get paid an extra £6.45 an hour. The woman laughs at so pathetic an offer and instantly accepts. I get my office back and go downstairs to take it up.

A couple with baby and small child are moving in to flat next door and I move into my empty office, which is now the size of Colourtrix in Leicester was. But then I realise I’ve moved out of this office in real life, and then I wake up.

Later I am able to return to this dream and start a meeting in a glass sided boardroom with my boss to discuss this situation, dream fizzles out.

Sunday 26 May 2019

Roll Up Halifax Preview


The Socks’ preview of Roll Up at Halifax (Fri May 24) was our first show in a month, and the first full hour long test of Roll Up since Glasgow in March. In April we did half an hour of Roll Up material as a warm up for our Superheroes shows, and that seemed to go well. Since then I’ve rewritten the script, added lots of totally new material and lost other stuff. Halifax got the lot and gave it the acid test of audience reaction. There is, let us say, work still do do.

For starters we weren’t getting laughs from the start. This was partly cos there were only 30 people on the crowd and we really needed to warm them up with solid, polished stuff from the start, and were possibly a little wavering to begin with. Once we picked up the energy and pace we won them over, and when the material was good it was perfect. So there were lots of high points and plenty of sustained laughter, but the story structure needs tightening and, most importantly, we still need good new material. Most significantly the show only came in at 50 minutes, so we had to round it off with an encore of Earth Song and Sweary Poppins.

Material lost since Glasgow:
Anne Hathaway Song (didn’t really fit)
Cross Channel Matt Alwright/Vicar/Golf (which was strong but didn’t fit, and had been in a previous show)
Bechdel Test Song (from last year, had been used as filler)
Phantom Of The Opera finale (which had been promising, but I thought we could do better)


Halifax Running Order:

Opening gags (Steroids, Smart, Dumbo, Ocelot) - good
I’m A Sock - during which I realised the audience weren’t warmed up enough
Greatest Showman music - needs to be better, not funny in itself
Gags (Chipperfield, Burlescue, 3 Rings, Coddled) - not strong enough. A string of one-liners is wrong here. It needs to be a strong, building routine

Philip Astley - misheard words quite good, but we need to have had something stronger by now
Astley music - good, messy end (edit music)
Astley horses/BSE - good, could be better

Annie The Elephant - music too slight, needs beefing up. Otherwise good.

Audience improv - first big laughs of the night, we did jumping through a flaming hoop. Luckily this spot has worked well every time, but we can’t rely on it, and we’re over 10 minutes in before we’re getting proper laughs

Juggling routine - good. 
Magic routine - excellent, but of course this is an old classic. 

Nicole Kidman - some laughs, but is she good enough? I’m now wondering why Nicole Kidman?

Performance Artist - we skipped this, didn’t quite feel it was in the wrong place & wanted to keep pace up

Lady In Pants - ok, but music is too slow and gappy

Gypsy Fortune Teller - (brand new) Didn’t work at all (seemed good on paper)

Greggs Song - good. Needs costume and dance routine (still! I’d meant to do that by now!)

Clown - (brand new) Great costume, variable routine. Some good bits, needs rewriting and integrating through rest of show.

Pagliacci Routine - good. We need more routines as good as this please. Rubbish punchline mind, think on’t.

City of Stars - ok, but could we do something better?

Eurovision Brexit Song - very good, though increasingly feels shoehorned in. Whatever, it’s good.

Return of Nicole Kidman (brand new) - good, could be better

Mixed scripts (brand new prop) - Needs making clearer.
Clown, Kidman & gypsy return - dreadful, what was I thinking? (Probably that I’d go back and fix the script, and never did)

Greatest Show finale (all brand new) - some parts of this are very good. The premise needs to be set up more clearly, the Baby Jesus costume didn’t get the laugh I thought it would. Nicole Kidman’s lines could be better.

Trapeze routine - almost there, but not clear enough. Sound FX need editing, script need tightening.

Doctor punchline - good, but audience clearly didn’t think that was the punchline, so need looking at.

And we could use a final song right here, at the end.

So, lots of writing and editing happening this week, ready for Vauxhall on Thursday and Brighton at the weekend. We can do it (stay tuned to see how true that is).


The Scottish Falsetto Socks brand new show ROLL UP! is previewing Nationwide:

May 30 - Vauxhall Comedy Club
June 1 & 2 - Komedia Brighton Fringe
June 8 - Harlequin Theatre Redhill
June 17 - Grassington Festival Yorkshire
June 22 - Strule Arts Omagh
June 27 - Neath Comedy Festival
July 8 - Barnes Fringe
July 12 - Kings Arms Salford, GM Fringe
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!



Wednesday 22 May 2019

Katy Perry Eats Sausage Kitten - comics by kids


A long weekend of comic classes began at the Ardhowen Arts Centre in Enniskillen, my second visit there. Ironically it was a week after the Enniskillen Comic Festival so I missed seeing my comic pals, but the kids got twice the comics fun. And good comics they made too.


Then we had two days at a row at twinned primary schools near to each other in Manchester. Firstly St Chrysostoms - crazy name, crazy saint - where the year 4s seemed to have a butt obsession...


Then St Johns Primary, where I took the opportunity to throw in an homage to Holbein's The Ambassadors, because why not.


The celebrities these six groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were The Queen, Donald Trump, Cristiano Ronaldo (twice), Ariana Grande, and Stan Lee.


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

Thursday 16 May 2019

Brighton new video - missing the videos?


Brand new from the Socks, here’s a fun little video promoting our forthcoming preview shows in Brighton. 

But apart from this, and the excerpts from the Glasgow shows that we’ve been putting out in dribs and drabs, the Socks are really not making many videos this season. There’s a reason for this, namely we don’t have our old office so we don’t have the filming space we had before. We could film on location, like we once did all the time, but somehow the inspiration hasn’t struck.

The question is, does it make a lot of difference to our fans out there? I ask this because, looking back at the many videos we made in the run up to our last three shows, hardly any of them have had any big viewing figures, and I don’t know what difference, if any, they’ve made to the attendance of our shows. Certainly we’re not the level of Youtube artist who makes money from the videos themselves.

So, fans, who came to our last three shows as a result of the videos? Who didn’t watch any of the videos but came any way? I’m genuinely interested.

Here are some stats from the last 3 shows’ pre-Edinburgh videos:

Deadpool - 1004 views
Avengers Reel - 484
Bechdel Test - 322
Infinity War - 316
Black Panther - 311
Fantastic Four - 279
Thor & Odin - 279
Black Lighting - 191
Silver Surfer - 164
DC - 208

Shakespearian Insults - 1435 views
Othello - 1087
Girls & Boys - 519
King John - 371
Bottom - 352
Comedy Of Errors - 295
As You Like It - 282
2 Gentlemen Of Verona - 233
Loves Labours Lost - 283

Broadchurch - 1406 views
Ian Rankin - 950
Reservoir Dogs - 1405
The Sweary - 864
Restaurant Sketch - 884
The Prisoner - 765
Ballad of Cannon & Ball - 824
Delilah - 680
Reject Titles - 675

Bearing in mind that the MInging videos have had four years to accrue those figures, they’re still pretty poor. And it’s significant that spoken sketch videos (Deadpool, Insults, Broadchurch & most of the Minging ones) get higher viewing figures than music videos. So perhaps I’ve been doing these musical videos purely for my own entertainment. Oh god, all the time I’ve wasted, when I could have been putting old tat on eBay instead.  



The Scottish Falsetto Socks brand new show ROLL UP! is previewing Nationwide:

May 24 - Victoria Theatre Halifax
May 30 - Vauxhall Comedy Club
June 1 & 2 - Komedia Brighton Fringe
June 8 - Harlequin Theatre Redhill
June 17 - Grassington Festival Yorkshire
June 22 - Strule Arts Omagh
July 8 - Barnes Fringe
July 12 - Kings Arms Salford, GM Fringe
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!

Tuesday 14 May 2019

How much are your old X-Men comics worth? The answer is here...



How much are your old X-Men comics worth? I think we have the answer here, with the totting up of my eBay sales over the last four weeks. Most valuable comic so far in this whole process is X-Men 101, and only five out of the whole collection are still going round the carousel waiting for a bid.

This Top Ten reminds me of the days when I used to pay attention to comic sales, way back in the 90s, when the top ten would be dominated by X-Men related titles, with other Marvel titles filling in the gaps, and Spawn being in there somewhere. I honestly have no idea how much has changed. I daren’t look.

My eBay sales April 26 - May 14

X-Men 101  £79.00
X-Men 58   £17.00
X-Men 120  £12.50
X-Men 136  £10.29
X-Men 109  £8.11
X-Men 125  £7.50
X-Men 131  £7.11
X-Men 100    £6.50
X-Men 138  £5.50
Bert Fegg + 3 annuals   £5.00

3 x Jack Kirby Silver Star Super Powers  £4.00
X-Men 113  £3.20
X-Men 78  £3.20
X-Men 111   £3.00
X-Men 130  £3.00
X-Men 117  £3.00
Sub-Mariner 51  £3.00
X-Men 110    £2.70
2 x Smash 1966/68   £2.50
8 x Mags Private Eye 72 Gladiators. £2.50

Warlock 14    £2.50
X-Men 114  £2.50
X-Men 126  £2.50
Classic X-Men 1 £2.50
X-Men 186  £2.50
X-Men 127  £2.50
X-Men 119 £2.50
3 x Tiger & Hurricane. £2.50
7 x DC Warlord, Wulf (comics beginning with W)  £2.50
5 x Thor  £2.50
4 x Comet Death Race Sabre  £2.50
5 x Naughty Bits Gay Comix £2.50
4 x Ultraverse  £2.50
2 x Simpsons  £2.50

Total £223.61

(Unsold and still trying:
X-Men 298, 285, 274, 159, 128
2 lots of 5 x X-Factor
FF x 2, Smash x 2
5 lots of Doctor Who magazines (batches of 7)
2 lots of Doctor Who rarities
2 lots of 4 x Doctor Who Radio Times)

Unsold and taken to the charity shop:
16 x Q Magazines (1998/99)
12 x SFX Magazines (1998/99)

All my eBay auctions are to be found here. 



The Scottish Falsetto Socks brand new show ROLL UP! is previewing Nationwide:

May 24 - Victoria Theatre Halifax
May 30 - Vauxhall Comedy Club
June 1 & 2 - Komedia Brighton Fringe
June 8 - Harlequin Theatre Redhill
June 17 - Grassington Festival Yorkshire
June 22 - Strule Arts Omagh
July 8 - Barnes Fringe
July 12 - Kings Arms Salford, GM Fringe
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!

Monday 13 May 2019

Sitcom Trials 2002 tour stuff uncovered


In a folder that I was very nearly about to sling into the recycling unopened, I've just found a delightful treasure trove of memorabilia from The Sitcom Trials first tour, which followed our Edinburgh Fringe debut of 2001. The tour, in the spring of 2002, was only 8 gigs long, but being the first I'd ever promoted was quite a little triumph for me and set the template for how I would go on to produce the, slightly longer, Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre tours of subsequent years.

These souvenirs are from the first four shows on the tour, in Leicester, Loughborough (both part of Leicester Comedy Festival), Cirencester, and Nottingham, and a London show at the Amused Moose, all of which starred the Edinburgh cast of Miranda Hart and Charity Trimm (who graced all our promotional materials, in a photo lifted from their own show with Sitcom Trials t-shirts Photoshopped in), Gez Foster and Dan Clegg. After these five gigs they decided they'd had enough of the show, which was much of a money maker once our meagre fee had been split five ways, leaving me to recruit and rehearse a new cast for the subsequent shows (in Glasgow, Reading, Gloucester and Warrington, now you ask). This I then did.

Amazingly this little period of Miranda's showbiz history hasn't featured heavily in her various autobiographies, and I confess I'd forgotten much of it (Cirencester, for example, was a Pointless answer I would never have got in a hundred guesses) but it's a pleasure to see I've hung onto these mementoes of that formative time in our various careers.

Whatever did happen to The Sitcom Trials?



The Scottish Falsetto Socks ROLL UP! Previews:

May 24 - Victoria Theatre Halifax
May 30 - Vauxhall Comedy Club
June 1 & 2 - Komedia Brighton Fringe
June 8 - Harlequin in Redhill
July 8 - Barnes Fringe
July 19 - Kings Arms Salford, GM Fringe
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. Sexy new venue, sexy new timeslot. 


Friday 10 May 2019

Dandelion Experiment 2019


Look away, not for the squeamish, I've done the Dandelion Experiment again. When I last did it, I was trying to get rid of a wart on my face, and had limited success.

This time I was trying to tackle a wart on the left side of my neck and, judging by the photographic results above, I'd say it worked. In fig one, Thursday 2nd May, we see the wart. It's raised by a couple of millimetres and is hard to the touch. After we've progressed through a week of it looking particularly ugly, with a positive asteroid belt of yellow heads swelling all around, we end up on Friday morning with my neck feeling almost smooth to the touch and the wart itself as good as invisible. Result.

The reason for the excess of the spread of infection may be a result of my application of dandelion, which I carried out on the walk between Ponteland and Newcastle airport on Thursday. With only my phone to help me aim, and doing it mostly by touch, I may have dabbed dandelion on more of the surrounding area than I intended.

Don't try this at home kids, it's based on zero scientific evidence. It has however worked twice in my experience, and failed twice. I shan't be trying it again this year, you'll be pleased to learn.

Thursday 9 May 2019

Killers & Councils - comics by kids


A varied and far flung trio of Comic Art Masterclass days begins with Horris Hill, the boys' prep boarding school near Henley On Thames that I've been to a few times and which ranks among the poshest of schools I've visited. (It was here that a year 5 boy, when asked what he wanted to do when he grew up, replied he wanted to be a Conservative Prime Minister, and he will be.) These year 5s came up with the darkest title of the week which, in turn, inspired my favourite cover.


And how's about this for hob-nobbing with the elite? A day of classes at the Royal Academy in London. Their artistic director Tim Marlow was part of the class, accompanying his son. I accidentally called him Quentin Wilson, but I don't think he noticed.


Then I was off to New Ross in County Wexford for a day at Kennedy College. Two lovely groups, first and second years, came up with another couple of corking titles, totally original and out of the box, provoking much laughter all around.


The celebrities these 6 groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were a rapper called L'il Pump, Bill Gates, Lionel Messi, Kim Kardashian, Gary Lineker and, possibly for the first time, Jesus.


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

Sunday 5 May 2019

Marker Post - Kev seeks new pens


Pens are funny things. And, as I discover, the ones I like using are increasingly hard to come by.

When I deliver my Comic Art Masterclasses (of which I do about 100 days worth every year, so they're a big part of my business) I draw on a flipchart. And I use a black pen. I use this same pen to draw caricatures of the pupils faces, drawing up to 30 in each class, so up to 60 each day. Adding to this the occasional caricaturing gigs I do at events and parties, I draw well over 5000 faces a year. And to do that I have to have the right black marker pen.

Until the last year or so I'd been able to stroll into any branch of Staples and pick up their Staples Duramark pens (see top item in photo, above). Then one day I walked into Staples, and it was no longer Staples, it was Office Outlet. And my favourite pens had disappeared.

But I looked online and I found that Staples Duramark pens, with their nice chiselled tip and shapely tapered body giving a perfect drawing and lasting half a day or 50 to 60 caricatures, were still to be found. And it was still less than a tenner for a pack of ten, all was well with the world.


Until early this year when, suddenly, Staples Duramark pens changed. They'd kept the same name, they were on the same Staples website, but they'd changed into a new pen (see the second pen down, above). The chisel tip wasn't so fine, the body was a horrible fat shape, and worst of all the ink had changed into a liquid that bled profusely. It bled not only through the sheets of the flipchart, so that my initial flipchart drawing (with which I start the day at school, given enough time, see below) had bled through ruining the second page of the flipchart, but also through the caricature pages, giving me an extra page with a ghost image on (which I quite like, but that's beside the point).

Point is, for reasons (I assume) of economy, Staples Duramark pens had changed from a good pen, that did a good job, and served my needs perfectly, to a less good pen, that didn't.


So now I'm shopping around. Obviously the days of getting ten good chisel tip marker pens for under a tenner are over. But since I do this professionally, and I get paid enough to allow for the costs, it looks like an upgrade is in order, so I've bought the above five pens, which I will be road-testing at my classes at the Royal Academy in London on Monday, and in New Ross County Wexford on Wednesday. They all cost between £1.99 and £2.50 each (from Rymans in Bristol by the way, since Office Outlet is now in receivership and about to disappear), so my pen costs and going up 2 to 3 times. Let us see which, if any, of these products becomes my new pen of choice.

The contenders are:

1) Staedtler Lumolour
2) Pentel Permanent Marker
3) Edding 2200C
4) Pilot 400
5) Sharpie W10

Let the trials begin.

UPDATE: May 6 at the Royal Academy I tried out the Staedtler Lumocolor & the Edding 2200C. Both are too dry and scratchy on the flipchart, but the Edding 2200C is very good for cariactures.

So good in fact that, on May 9th (after the Edding had continued to do good service at school in New Ross, meaning it held out for over 100 caricatures, which is very good indeed) I went into Ryman's in Bristol to stock up for that Saturday's caricaturing stint at Imogen & Ben's wedding. They were out of stock. So...

May 11: At Imogen and Ben's wedding I tested out the Pentel Permanent Marker for the caricatures and am pleased to confirm that it, too, is good. It lasted for all approximately 100 caricatures I did on the day. So we have a replacement for the Staples Duramark. Which is good because...

May 10: I was expecting a delivery of Staples Duramarks and they sent me totally different pens (colour fineliners). They said I'd get my proper order the next day. But lo, at time of writing on May 14th, they've still not come. Staples is a basket case sadly.


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

Thursday 2 May 2019

Kev F's Comic Art Masterclass - new flyer

My Comic Art Masterclasses continue their epic tour of every single school, library, art centre, and novel event in the country, nay the world. And here's a brand new advert to help it along.

In the past year my classes have taken me to Germany, Switzerland, Ireland and Romania, as well as to all points in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. If you've not had me into your place of education to teach the fine art of Comic Strip storytelling to kids aged 7 and upwards, now's the time.


As it says on the flyer, distance is no object and a day of my Comic Art Masterclasses cost less than you might think. Don't hesitate to get in touch.


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

Dot and Pigs - comics by kids


A week of Comic Art Masterclasses began at Orwell Park School in Ipswich, which is a very nice private school in an old mansion. All week I was working with Year 5s and, as always in the various schools I visit, I find private and state school pupils have as much in common as they have difference. Though the choice of Albert Einstein as a celebrity was perhaps an indicator of something there.


The next day I was at Queen's Crescent in Chippenham, and an obsession with spouses seemed common to both schools, as did name-dropping teachers. And what a treat it was to have a stab at drawing Uncle Pigg, my old first editor from Oink comic, which I started work on over thirty years ago. (Gulp, thirty years ago Oink had already gone out of business. I didn't manage to go full time freelance until Gas and Brain Damage had come along a year later).


My favourite cover of the week, the title of Dot only came about because a kid got fixated on the word and was enjoying repeating it with exaggerated aspirants. Dot Cotton was my idea, but luckily some of them recognised her. Peppa Pig was boring in comparison, but a fun excuse to draw Earth's simplest character. Both of these from Ponteland Middle School in Northumberland. So quite the travelling I've been doing this week, wouldn't you say?


The celebrities these six groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Ariana Grande, Kim Jong Un, Simon Cowell, David Walliams, Jake Paul, and, most inspiring of the week (because, unlike last time it was chosen, the pupils actually meant the real person not the character off Big Heads), Albert Einstein. And is that a new logo you spot at the foot of the montage? Why how astute of you to notice, yes it is. More to follow.


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
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