An Explosion of Trumps - comics by kids in Swindon & Birmingham

What is it with primary school kids and Donald Trump? So far this week I've done five classes with year 6 kids, at schools in Swindon and Birmingham, and every single one of them chose a Donald Trump-themed title for the group comic they've taken home with them. The titles actually piece together into quite a nifty storyline (as you can see above).

I can only apologise to the parents whose kids brought these babies home the other day. Psychotic Donald Trump Beats Up A Unicorn, and then David Cameron Kills Donald Trump. The teachers say that the kids are obsessed with the daft-haired racist, and it's definitely the case that, once his name is mentioned in the game we play to choose the best of their 30 titles (everyone in the class writes a title on a piece of paper), nothing can beat it. Oh god, let's hope this isn't repeated by the electorate.

The year 6's at Albert Bradbeer school (crazy name, crazy kids) certainly managed to envisage that eventuality. The celebs these 5 groups chose for my "treads on a worm" demonstration game were Kim Kardashian, Barack Obama, Keith Lemon (twice) and Justin Bieber.



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. After a morning or an afternoon every pupil goes away with a photocopied comic containing a strip by every single one of them, and an individual caricature by Kev F. Please email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video  

Rooney Loves McDonalds - new comics by kids in Ealing & Phillipstown

Toilets will never go out of fashion with primary school kids. Don't ask me why. And when you show them one class's comic with toilets in the title, suddenly you're flush with them. As it were. Still the kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses can always teach me something. In this instance, they've taught me of the existence of DJ Khaled, of whom I had no knowledge, but who came up twice as the suggestion for a celebrity for my demonstration strip. This was Mayfield Primary in Ealing.

Or Hanwell. Mayfield were quite happy with either address, so during the three days I spent there, working with their year 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s, you'll see comics with both addresses, and the more neutral W7, in the bottom right hand corner. The kids take away A5 black and white photocopied comics, containing a strip by every one of them, an an individual caricature, and these colourised versions are just a little nicety I do after the fact.

Oh and foreheads are funny, apparently. Last week in Barking, all the kids were obsessed with "your hairline", the phrase making it onto one of their front covers, and this week it was the forehead. I neither know nor care where this comes from.

And just when I'm extolling the originality of the kids, we get the year 3/4s in Phillipstown, who I visited 18 months ago, and who came up with a variation on the same title their predecessors had. Then it was Scary Teacher, featuring a picture of Miss Dowd, and this time as you can see.

The celebrities they chose to tread on a worm were DJ Khaled (twice), The Queen, William Boody (the alias of a wrestler called Paul Bearer, apparently), Will I Am, Donald Trump and Lionel Messi (one group skipped the whole worm thing, because I'd had them last year so we did something different).





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. After a morning or an afternoon every pupil goes away with a photocopied comic containing a strip by every single one of them, and an individual caricature by Kev F. Please email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video  

EU Referendum - my thoughts

The EU referendum - my arguments for Bremaining.



In this increasingly heated (on Facebook at least) debate about whether the UK should leave the EU, I've mostly joked and cajoled, in the way that one does when one assumed most of your audience share the same opinion as you. In the past this has served me well, as most comedy club audiences over the last 20 odd years have proved sympathetic to my view of the world.

My most recent dalliance with satire, 2014's Socks show "...And So Am I" had as its high-points the UKIP Song (which may have crossed into Al Murray territory with some people not getting the joke & thinking it was actually pro-UKIP, though how you could get to lines like "We'll have no more refugees, throw them back into the seas" and not get that we were joking, I don't know), and the Oh What A Lovely War On Terror Song. 2015's Minging Detectives show divided audiences every night with Hello Muddah, Intifada. In all cases, I know where I come from (I don't like war or xenophobia), and most of the audience do too.



But with the EU referendum that's changed. Until this year, the notion of leaving the European Union was something argued for by the UK Independence Party and no-one else of note. Okay, there were Eurosceptic right-wing Tory MPs, the most extreme of whom defected to UKIP, but that just emphasised the fact that it was a desire of right-wing xenophobes who disliked immigration of all sorts, and whose anti-European politics mingled easily with an illiberal anti-leftie, anti-human rights, anti-welfare state, anti-arts, anti-culture, anti-helping anyone other than your immediate family kind of narrow-minded Little Engladerism that I hate, despise and oppose.

Now, it seems, Brexiteers include not just swivel-eyed neo-Nazi loons, but normal people. On my Facebook I've had a few people, including comedy writers and cartoonists and acquaintances I know fairly well, who are pro-Brexit and are getting fed up of the only anti-Brexit argument they hear being the same ones we had been using for UKIPpers.

They're tiring of we Bremainderers (there must be a collective term) highlighting the leading lights of the Brexit campaign (Farage, Boris, Gove) and its supporters (Katie Hopkins, Putin, Trump etc) and suggesting they are tainted by association. They say this is a childish bit of name-calling that doesn't address the arguments. And I guess they're right. So, let's have a go.

Why should we stay in the EU?

The trouble for me with this question is the fact that anyone's asking it. My automatic response is "Why should we leave the EU?" I'm quite happy in the EU. I'm a beneficiary of it, I believe in its principles, and it's never done me any harm.

Being told we're voting about whether to stay in the EU is like being told "we're voting for everyone to be chucked out of their house, then you can apply to get back in your house, with a slightly different lease". Oh yes? you ask. Who's deciding what'll be in this new lease then? "Leave it to us" reply a collection of politicians, none of whom you would vote for.

Would everyone who wants Brexit also vote for Gove, Farage, Bojo, IDS et al? I must assume they would, since voting for Brexit IS voting for all of the above. (Hang on, does that mean I'm voting for Cameron? Not by choice, no. I'm voting to not vote in the first place, so I am voting for none of the above, including the above).



Because why leave the EU? Who wants to and why? Well, we know the publishers of right wing national newspapers want to be independent of Europe. Rupert Murdoch famously said 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.' One can only assume his fellow publishers have similar reasons, they've certainly spent enough time persuading their readers to vote Brexit for a long long time.

So, why else to leave the EU, if you're not a newspaper owner with some sort of vested interest? This is where is becomes hard to make the pro-EU case without it turning into a constant refuting of the anti-EU case.

The Brexiteers list, and often repeat, the reasons they want to leave the EU, all of which seem spurious, bogus, or just plain lies.

Brexit: We send £350m a week to Brussels.
The facts: No we don't.

Brexit: 70% of Britains laws are made by Brussels.
The facts: No they're not

Brexit: If we stopped spending this money on the EU, we'd spend it on the NHS
The facts: Really? IDS? Gove? Farage? Bojo? The saviours of the NHS? Anyone who can make that argument with a straight face is most likely a psychopath.

Brexit: The EU is run by unelected officials / it is undemocratic
The facts: No it isn't. According to fullfact.org: "The EU has more democratic controls than a typical international organisation"



Brexit: We can't control our borders because of the EU
The facts: If we were part of the Schengen passport-free area, this might be arguable. As it is, we've chosen not be to part of that system, so we already have more border controls than other European countries

Brexit: We get terrorism because of being in the EU.
The facts: We've already explained away the border controls argument. So which terrorism is the EU responsible for? The home-grown terrorists responsible for 99% of incidents in the UK to date, or the ones from outside the EU, responsible for all the rest?

Brexit: The Common Agricultural Policy - it is bad
The facts: The Common Agricultural Policy - it is boring.
And as to whether we would be better or worse out of it, everything I have read (and I've read more than I wanted to), leaves me with an equal pile of arguments pro & con. For every farmer that relies on subsidies to survive, there's a farmer who'd be better off without the restrictions. I may never find the answer, there may not be one. Both sides will never agree.

The arguments for Economy, Trade and Jobs all reach the same stalemate, indeed these are the areas that have been bandied about most in the headlines, with Cameron & Osborne making the case one way, their Brexit opponents making it the other. The statistics appear to cancel each other out, with the most important of them being entirely speculative. No-one can say, so we're back to the "why leave the EU?" question we started with.

Sovereignty and immigration. These seem to be the two final bugbears that need unpicking. Brexit says the UK needs "its Sovereignity back" and that the UK needs to control immigration.

I believe Britain has "its Sovereignty", in as far as it has a monarchy, with which I don't agree and which I am loathe to support, and it has a democratic government which has so much control over the laws of the land that it's been able to be hoodwinked into running this ridiculous referendum. Why we need any more of that kind of Sovereignity I don't know. And why we'd like to give more decision making over to the sort of people who bang on about "Sovereignty" rather than counterbalancing it with the opinions and values of other enlightened nations, I do not know.

You see I like co-operation, and naive and idealistic as it may seem, I believe the founding principles of the European Union , and the project that has seen a growing number of countries working towards these ends is a good thing that has maintained peace in Europe.

And finally immigration.

Brexit: Immigration = bad
Me: Immigration = good

So, why vote to leave the EU? I don't know. I simply do not know. I cannot find myself able to empathise with anyone who wants to leave the EU, when there is nothing I can see that makes that a thing worth doing.

I am worried that people are being driven by right wing madmen into the hands of right wing madmen, and every time I look at the line-up of people publicly backing this cause I find people whose values I do not hold, and whose motivations I mistrust. But it is happening, and how it will turn out I can not imagine.

I will continue to caricature Brexiteers as UKIP-pers, and if they feel they are a different beast they can try and persuade me why I should think otherwise. The debate will continue.





Further reading: 
Gary Younge on how ridiculing Brexiteers doesn't help.
Washington Post on the Rise of the Far Right
Stephen Hawking on how Brexit Spells Disaster

Russell T Davies on Brexit: "I’ll vote in, of course. Mainly because everyone who’s campaigning to get us out is a fucking idiot. You look at them – there’s Gove, there’s Boris Johnson, there’s IDS. My mind is made up!"

Nick Bottom - new from Socks Do Shakespeare

More musical nonsense from the Socks, just a short one, to add to the audience-in medley that's growing by the week. This time it's Bottom, we hope you enjoy it.

That audience in playlist, so far:







The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre do Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Fringe August 2016 - see the previews in your town!

★★★★★ "Accessible, contemporary and ridiculous" - Brighton Argus May 2016
★★★★ "Eat your heart out, Olivier" - What's On May 2016 
★★★★ "Comedy genius at work" - Theatre Bath April 2016 

June 9 - Bridgend 
July 3 - Derby Bar One 2pm 
July 8 - Flavel, Dartmouth
July 10 - Tring Festival 
July 14 - Market Harborough Theatre
July 17 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm

July 17 - Greater Manchester Fringe , Kings Arms Salford 7pm

July 21 - Barnes Fringe
July 22 - Bedford Fringe
July 30 - Blaenavon Rhymney Brewery

Aug 3 - 29 - 10.30pm The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe  

Socks Do Shakespeare: The Previews

As you'll know if you've been reading this blog, the Socks are doing Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Fringe this year (BOOK NOW - and spread the word), and have lined up a whole load of Preview shows in advance. I've also made Twitter ads to go with each of them, in the vain hope that Tweeting them puts bums on seats. Let us see. Here, for your pleasure, a cavalcade of near-identical adverts.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre do Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Fringe August 2016 - see the previews in your town!

★★★★★ "Accessible, contemporary and ridiculous" - Brighton Argus May 2016
★★★★ "Eat your heart out, Olivier" - What's On May 2016 
★★★★ "Comedy genius at work" - Theatre Bath April 2016 

June 9 - Bridgend 
July 3 - Derby Bar One 2pm 
July 8 - Flavel, Dartmouth
July 10 - Tring Festival 
July 14 - Market Harborough Theatre
July 17 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm

July 17 - Greater Manchester Fringe , Kings Arms Salford 7pm

July 21 - Barnes Fringe
July 22 - Bedford Fringe
July 30 - Blaenavon Rhymney Brewery

Aug 3 - 29 - 10.30pm The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe 

Midsummer Nights Dream - 32 years later, BBC catches up with Leicester

Last night BBC 1 showed an excellent version of Midsummer Night's Dream, adapted by Russell T Davies and directed by David Kerr. It neatly shaped the play to be 90 minutes long with a good balance of fantasy (it has, inevitably, been compared to Doctor Who) and comedy, with extra added LGBT fun that Shakespeare probably didn't have in mind. I was chuffed to find that I was the first to add it to Midsummer Night's Dream's Wikipedia entry (I hope my edit is still there, they often get taken down for no obvious reason). In my entry I make mention of this adaptation's healthy Black And Minority Ethnic mix in the cast (casting by Andy Pryor, also of Doctor Who).

Which brings the BBC kicking and screaming to the the standard of The Leicester Haymarket 32 years ago.


Way back in 1984, fresh from our very first visit as punters to the Edinburgh Fringe, Heather and I booked to see pretty well the next year's worth of shows at the Haymarket in Leicester. And amongst them, in October 1984, was A Midsummer Night's Dream designed by John Byrne, who was then artistic director of Leicester Haymarket, and who many will know as the writer of Tutti Frutti, the painter of Gerry Rafferty's album covers and portraits of Billy Connolly, and as one of Scotland's greatest living artists.

The production was directed by Nancy Meckler and as well as including the most hilarious Rude Mechanicals, in the form of Edinburgh Fringe stars The People Show - whose Pyramus & Thisbe remained the laugh-out-loud funniest I had seen until The Lord Chamberlain's Men's outdoor production in 2011 - it had the best and most representative BAME casting I'd seen to that date. Given that this show took place in Leicester, in 1984, it would have been wrong and totally unrepresentative of the city to have cast it any other way. 32 years later, even moreso.

The cast included Don Warrington (of Rising Damp fame) as Oberon and Theseus, Angela Bruce (of Angels, and Doctor Who's Battlefield) as Helena, Souad Faress as Titania and Hippolyta, Vicky Licorish as Hermia, and local schoolkids, almost all Indian, as the fairies. In 1984 it seemed perfect, and one would have thought that would be how things would stay from that time on.

Or, as they say this century, "going forward". But the 1980s were an idealistic time, full of political forward thinking, especially in the arts, and many of our thoughts of how far we'd progressed turned out to be more optimistic than we realised.


LGBT matters, for example, looked like everything was improving in the world in 1984. Look at the top pop acts of 84/85 and you see Boy George, George Michael, Holly Johnson, Elton John, Freddie Mercury and others all tantalisingly on the brink of coming out (a newly-coined term at the time). Sadly the AIDS epidemic put paid to that hope for most people, and it would take some people decades to be able to be honest and out. Russell T Davies's Dream is at least testimony to the changes more recent years have brought.

But BAME casting (no, we didn't say BAME in 1984)? In 1984 Leicester was ahead of the curve.

Look at the BBC's last Midsummer Night's Dream, in 2005, as part of the Shakespeare Re-Told season. Lennie James is Oberon, Mina Anwar is the minor character Flute, and that's about it for minority ethnicity in that Peter Bowker/ Ed Fraiman adaptation.

On the big screen, since 1984, Midsummer Nights Dream has been directed in 1996 by Adrian Noble starring Lindsay Duncan and Alex Jennings. As far as I can see, every single character is white. In 1999 it's done in Hollywood by Michael Hoffman, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Kevin Kline. Again every face I can see on IMDb is white.

Julie Taymor does slightly better with her 2014 big screen adaptation, casting David Harewood as Oberon, and all her 'Rude Elementals' as black or minority ethnic, but still not up to the levels of the Beeb in 2016 or Leicester Haymarket in 1984.


So what does this tell us about the state of BAME representation on TV? Probably not a great deal. Far better researched pieces have been written on the subject than these casual meanderings (see here an article about a database showing how black and Asian performers are “ghettoised” into second-tier roles, and here about the Multicultural Shakespeare In Britain project for Warwick University). But we can hope that such considerations will continue to be borne in mind, now that they are on the agenda of such a visible player as BBC 1, and not the avant garde forward-thinking of a regional theatre in the distant and idealistic past.

Let's hope what we saw this week doesn't turn out to have been a... well, you can see where I was about to go there.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre do Shakespeare at the Edinburgh Fringe August 2016 - see the previews in your town!

★★★★★ "Accessible, contemporary and ridiculous" - Brighton Argus May 2016
★★★★ "Eat your heart out, Olivier" - What's On May 2016 
★★★★ "Comedy genius at work" - Theatre Bath April 2016 

May 19 - Old Joint Stock Birmingham
May 22 - Komedia, Brighton Fringe
May 28 - Ards Puppet Festival, Newtonards
June 9 - Bridgend 
July 3 - Derby Bar One 2pm 
July 8 - Flavel, Dartmouth
July 10 - Tring Festival 
July 14 - Market Harborough Theatre
July 17 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm

July 17 - Greater Manchester Fringe , Kings Arms Salford 7pm

July 21 - Barnes Fringe
July 22 - Bedford Fringe
July 30 - Blaenavon Rhymney Brewery
Aug 3 - 29 - 10.30pm The Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe 

Amazing Adventures Of Your Hairline - comics by kids in Barking, Plymouth & Wilts

Were you aware of dabs, or dabbing, or doing the dab? If you're as old as me, probably not. According the pupils in Year 5 at Widewell Primary near Plymouth, it's a thing that Jason Derulo does. You live and learn. Anyhoo, they chose that as the title for their comic, and had Donald Trump doing it. Just one of the comics created by pupils in this week's Comic Art Masterclasses.

The pupils in Year 5 at Northbury Primary in Barking, which I was returning to after visiting for last year's Magna Carta project there, are obsessed with something different. Their hairline. Or rather the phrase "your hairline" which was an in-joke phrase that came up in every group (I was working with all 4 of their year 5 groups over two days). Like all in-jokes, I never got a satisfactory explanation as to why it was funny. If you have to ask, you'll never know.

In the village of Broughton Gifford in Wiltshire they were reassuringly infantile. For one class at least, where Big Bottom won the search for our favourite title (everyone in the class writes a title on a piece of paper, then we have a knockout contest to find the most popular). Then they were back to Year 5 level with My Teacher Is A Psycho (one of those words, like Zombie Apocalypse, that every kid wants to know how to spell but for some reason no teacher has ever told them).

What kids find funny will always remain unfathomable, which is why "Jeff" and his popularity can never be explained to me. This comes from a meme from two years ago, where a character from a film says "my name is Jeff" in a funny voice. Quite why, two years later, some ten year old kids think this is the funniest thing on god's good earth I cannot imagine. But it seems to be. Sigh.

The celebrities they chose for my "treads on a worm" demonstration were Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian, JK Rowling, Rihanna, Simon Cowell (still suggested in 75% of classes if not finally chosen), Ariana Grande and (most original suggestion of the week) Leonardo DaVinci.



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. After a morning or an afternoon every pupil goes away with a photocopied comic containing a strip by every single one of them, and an individual caricature by Kev F. Please email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video