Kev F comic art

April 5 - Chorley Little Theatre 90 min (Superheroes)

May 24 - Victoria Halifax Roll Up 7pm

June 1 & 2 - Brighton Komedia
June 8 - Harlequin, Reigate

July 8 - OSO Barnes Fringe

July 19 - Kings Arms, Greater Manchester Fringe

July 20 - Bedford Fringe

July 30 - Aug 25 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe 9.30pm

Thursday, 31 January 2019

Don't Lets Be Beastly To The Leavers - new video

Brand new from the Socks - Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Leavers. A fun new song, recorded and shot today, I do hope everyone enjoys it.

The song itself, obviously, is based on the Noel Coward classic and channels the same satirical message. Having written the lyrics Wednesday evening, I then had to go to the storage unit to rescue my keyboard in order to record it. This is the first song where I've played all of the music for a while, having relied on karaoke tracks for a lot of recent tunes, especially ones that aren't part of the stage show. Possible the last song I played with no assistance was Avengers Reel from the Superheroes show. Anyway, any bum notes, they're all me, played in the key of C then transposed down to B flat so I could sing it.

The video was a tight thing too. My camera has a fault by which the power cable doesn't seem to be working. It's had this glitch on and off over recent years but usually, eg last week when I used it, it fritzed back onto working properly and it charged up. This video was shot in one take, with the camera showing 8 minutes of battery life remaining, and transferred to the laptop on the same bit of juice. I'm now looking at a DV camera that's dead to the world. A problem I'll remember about when it's time for the next video.

And I know there's an error in the subtitles (apart from the indecision about whether to write Lets or Let's, and doing both), which I didn't spot until it was too late. Live with it.

UPDATE: By Mon Feb 4 this has had 3200 views on Facebook, + 820 views of its square version. This compares to 2500 views of Fyre Festival. On Youtube it's only mustered 193 views.

Let's see how many Leavers this drags out of my Facebook woodwork. Chances are there aren't any left. But I did get one slightly hostile comment on last week's Fyre Festival video:

boredoftheworld wrote:

I love the Socks. For years I've subjected everyone I know to clips. A trip to the UK with my wife to see the Socks is at the top of my bucket list. I've up-voted every Socks clip but this one... this one was oversimplified pandering that serves no one. Take a few shots but an all out assault only alienates people with differing political opinions. It's the overreaching that turns something funny into something annoying. Everyone on earth already knows all the trendy people hate brexit, there's no point virtue signaling about it anymore.﻿

As I say, I'm not expecting him to have this among his favourites either.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are previewing and touring throughout 2019.

Feb 15/16 - Kayal Leicester

Mar 20/21 - Dram Glasgow

April 5 - Chorley Little Theatre 90 min (Superheroes)

May 24 - Victoria Halifax Roll Up 7pm

June 1 & 2 - Brighton Komedia
June 8 - Harlequin, Reigate

July 8 - OSO Barnes Fringe

July 19 - Kings Arms, Greater Manchester Fringe

July 20 - Bedford Fringe

July 30 - Aug 25 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe 9.30pm

Wednesday, 30 January 2019

Dumfries

I knew my one off gig at the Big Burns Supper in Dumfries was going to be a loss leader, but I never guessed quite how expensive it was going to end up being. This was what the screen of my laptop looked like after I’ve taken advantage of the offer of putting bags in the hold on my Easy jet flight home on Monday afternoon. Not thinking how vulnerable my laptop might be inside my suitcase, it having been fine every journey before. I let it go in the hold, and when I got back home I found the lid was slightly dented and the screen looked like this. On Wednesday I have to get a new laptop or get the screen fixed.

The Big Burns Supper event I was to be part of was a bit of a mystery to me. Was it a festival like the ones they have in a field, or more like those Fringes that take place across a town? A bit of both, it transpired, with my show taking place in a converted packing container which made an efficient little black box theatre. Unfortunately it was right next to the main tent with bands and music on. So, as I discovered when I went to watch a magic show in there on Saturday night, it suffered total noise bleed the like of which you’ve never heard.

Playing on Sunday afternoon in Dumfries meant that I had to fly up on Saturday and back on Monday, which made a one hour gig take up three days. But I thought I could use the getaway experience as an excuse to get some writing done. I managed a couple of gags and a couple of blogs I’m afraid. But the budget worked out a lot better than it might have done. With a Holiday Inn costing only £25 a night, flights at a little over £20 each way, £25 for a hire car for 2 days, and £25 for parking, it might not have been. Impossible to break even on this gig. As it happens, with about 20 punters in the container, I might not quite have managed it. But at least it eased me into the year’s performances, and was a good gig.

It turned out to be my second show of the year, having headlines Mark Olver’s Belly Laughs charity show at Spike Island the previous Tuesday, sharing a bill with an impressive array of 7 other really good acts, all Bristol based. Truly the Bristol wave of comedy has gone from strength to strength while I’ve not been paying attention.

In Dumfries I ended up seeing almost as many shows as I saw last year in Edinburgh, watching the magic show on Saturday then a one man dramatic monologue about a murder in Cyprus, both battling with noise bleed, then after my show I stuck around for James Cary’s show about comedy and religion. I even bought his book, which is very good, and we chatted for a bit as our shows crossed over.

The Socks gave them an edited version of Superheroes (removing The Brother subplot, Avengers Reel, FF and Thanos) with Magic and Earth Song inserted. I thought this would work as a sort of Best Of, and it went down really well, but I’d have been more satisfied if I’d just given them Superheroes in its entirety. All good though, and both of this year’s shows have helped me back on the Socks horse.

It’s been a funny old January and no mistake. The funeral and clearing out the house in Kibworth, coupled with trying to work from home and having fewer schools lined up than this time last year, has made it a low earning and hard going few weeks. I’ve been putting lots of stuff on eBay, generating very little money, making it seem like a time wasting cry fo help as much as anything constructive. I hope to get the year back into its stride when February comes.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre return with a brand new show in 2019. Stay tuned.

Feb 15/16 - Kayal Leicester

Mar 20/21 - Dram Glasgow

April 5 - Chorley Little Theatre 90 min (Superheroes)

May 24 - Victoria Halifax Roll Up 7pm

June 1 & 2 - Brighton Komedia
June 8 - Harlequin, Reigate

July 8 - OSO Barnes Fringe

July 19 - Kings Arms, Greater Manchester Fringe

July 20 - Bedford Fringe

July 30 - Aug 25 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Tuesday, 29 January 2019

Dreams

I very rarely write down dreams, I'm not even sure how often I remember them. But on the Monday night after coming back from my travels to Dumfries, I jotted down this epic. Apologies for it being in gibberish.

Indian news presenter, poss Samira Ahmed who interviewed me on Front Row, has to get stuff from car, when she returns she's turned into Mum. I have to reverse small car and find parking space then meet up with mum when I have, there is to-ing and fro-ing by text. Mum has fetched stuff from my office in garage, I have had to bring car round. Star spotting I see Ringo Starr and follow Joe Cocker thru crowded bar, that’s where I meet Mum. Mum needs loo in a department store, we rush up and down corridors following woman who works there, end up in office where Dad and boss are watching Rugby match with two sons and fellow workers and betting on it. Dad drinking coke and burping, 50s unshaven, telling me how he’s now doing 3 spots a week guesting on local radio, The boss tells me they’ve based the year’s Christmas card on Bob’s office chair.

In earlier dream I introduce Simon Pegg to David Tennant, then have to get boring guy away from Paul Weller who’s trying to do a crossword in the corner of the pub.

Other dreams in sequence feature famous people.

There was a feeling that they were all famous and I wasn’t but felt I should be.

Tuesday dream: At a location based on Kibworth Primary school hall there were speeches and some sort of charity presentations going on, I had to go round the back of the building to get to where the portakabins used to be to avoid going through the hall.

The celebrity studded dream was sparked by going through security at Glasgow airport alongside Paul Weller. Biggest star spotting of the year so far. The crossword puzzle comes from a guy on the plane who was doing one next to me. The office chair may relate to the one from my office which we took to the recycling a week or so ago. The appearance of Mum and Dad is not that surprising as they've been in our thoughts a lot this month. These dreams were of course fragments of long dreams, most of which I'd forgotten by the time I started writing them.

Wednesday dream: Donald Trump was visiting our small flat, he was landlord or something, and for some reason he goes and hides in the shower, or takes a shower. We've been wondering where he's got to then he emerges, soaking wet, weraing some pyjamas he's grabbed, and screaming that there was only cold water and he's had a cold shower and is very unhappy about it. Hev's Mum & Anet have been watching or listening in on the shower incident and are in fits of laughter. The carpet of our room is blue and wet and mouldy, the whole place (again not based on our actual flat it has a long, low layout, like an apartment in an American film) is decrepit. Trump gets dressed and leaves, we leave him to walk the long way down to the street below. He is followed out a bit later by his wife, not Melania but an older woman with red curly hair who seems amused by the affair.

Dream Diary Monday Feb 4:

I had to help organise stand up gig that was part of a wedding, when I arrived they had no idea and were trying to get sound out of lamp stand plugged the wrong way into a speaker (this refers to lighting I used to make Socks videos, and sound system we had to set up at Spike Island gig).

Then a small female comedian called (forgotten name, Spig or Mig or Blink, made up name) who look like Pog off TV, turned up nose but with orange hair, starts doing routine but audience leaves during it.

Previous dream ( 2 nights ago) had various Doctor Who’s. The part of Tom Baker was being played by Geoffrey Rush.

Sunday, 27 January 2019

Fyre Festival - new video from the Socks

A totally brand new video from the Socks, Fyre Festival, written and shot this week. And it's the first I've managed to shoot in Clevedon, since losing the studio last year.

I filmed this by comandeering the lounge and setting up my green screen across the entrance to the kitchen. So it's shot entirely using daylight, but I think it's worked (apart from the height of the chair I used, meaning that unfortunately you can see my head). Not as convenient as the old studio set up, but not impossible. Little by little I'm finding ways of keeping the creative juices flowing.

Not that I've written much of any use for the new show yet, which debuts in little over a fortnight, but the cogs are slowly starting to grind back into action after what has been, I think anybody would have to concede, a very unusual and disturbing few months.

Fyre Festival is on Youtube as a subtitled version and a vanilla version (I prefer the subtitled, which is also edited down a bit to lose less good lines) and is getting good viewings on Facebook, already over the 2000 mark, the first in a while to take off so quickly.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre return with a brand new show in 2019. Stay tuned.

Feb 15/16 - Kayal Leicester

Mar 20/21 - Dram Glasgow

April 5 - Chorley Little Theatre 90 min (Superheroes)

May 24 - Victoria Halifax Roll Up 7pm

June 1 & 2 - Brighton Komedia

July 30 - Aug 25 - Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Perfumes & Hollywood - new Socks videos

Perfumes, a new video from the Scottish Falsetto Socks, enjoy. I say new, but in fact it's a routine we did ages ago, that I fancied refilming. And the same goes for this one, Hollywood Babbling...

This has never been performed by the Socks before, but has an even older provenance, having begun life in a strip called Hollywood Babbling that I wrote and drew in UT comic, way way back in the day.

Having lost the studio at the end of last year, and thus the easy ability to very quickly shoot a video against the green screen that was permanently set up there, I was struggling to get my Socks' creative gears running. So I took advantage of last week's visit to Kibworth to set up a temporary studio in the back room and very quickly rattle off these two videos, plus some plugs for the forthcoming Socks shows in Leicester and Glasgow:

Leicester plug 1, 2, 3 and Glasgow plug 1.

The lighting for these worked out rather well, using the angled light from the corner of the room as they top light, and my old anglepoise lamp as the lowlight. That's the light I used to use as a kid, still coming in handy all these years later.

The plug videos have gone onto Facebook and Twitter in a framed version, made using Keynote. I make these notes largely for my own benefit.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre return with a brand new show in 2019. Stay tuned.

Feb 15/16 - Kayal Leicester

Mar 20/21 - Dram Glasgow

April 5 - Chorley Little Theatre 90 min (Superheroes)