From Abergavenny Writing Festival to a prep school in Northamptonshire to two schools in Staffordshire, these Comic Art Masterclasses were a delight, though a little dominated by Peppa Pig. They did also involve a lot of Taylor Swift, and a slightly embarrassing post-event makeover.
Christchurch Lichfield was a return booking, and they came up with smashing titles this time. Bobby Dazzler was a surprising term that seems to have returned from the olden days, and there we see our first mentions of Peppa Pig and fatness.
Abergavenny Writing Festival was a fun one-off gig, which included Cath and Oliver from our Society Of Authors group as class members. After this class, Hev and I then had to make our way to Nottingham for the Scottish Falsetto Socks to perform Eurovision at the Theatre Royal that night. I like to keep busy.
Maidwell Hall in Northants is a very posh prep school. I was invited by the head, who'd previously been at Horris Hill, which was the poshest prep school I'd previously taught at. The infectious nature of Peppa Pig made itself clear here. Whenever the kids see a previous comic, ie last week's example from Lichfield, with Peppa Pig on, they seemingly can't think of anything funnier in the world. So, as we're whittlng down their thirty suggestions, the Peppa titles win.
Etchinghill in Rugeley was another fun set of classes, with Year 4s. I got caught out by the titles they came up with. While carefully ensuring they didn't vote for the more scatological titles, and making sure I played down the Peppa Pigs this time, I wasn't really paying enough attention to the title they did choose. Inspired no doubt by the fact that I refer to Bottom as an ass, when I'm showing them my Midsummer Night's Dream Team, they found the "...Fat Ass" title above the most hilarious of the classfull. But the inclusion of the words "drunk, deaf" and "blind" along with disgusting and fat is something I should have really addressed. In the whirl of activity I didn't, and I drew it. Quite rightly, the next day the school got in touch and asked if I could amend it.
Phew, I think I just about got away with it. Probably have to put that school down on the "no return booking next year" list.
The celebrities these seven groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were Taylor Swift (three times), Usain Bolt, Cristiano Ronaldo, Jeff Bezos, and the most original suggestion of the month: Jimmy Hill. No, I don't know how they knew him either.
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