World War Duck & 100 Barts - comics by kids

Every year, for longer than I can remember, Colmore Juniors in Kings Heath in Birmingham have had me in to do two days of classes with their Year Fives, of whom there are four groups. They're always a joy to work with, and these are the comics they produced.

Day two at Colmore and I had fun drawing step-and-repeat Barts, and Bob from Bob's Burgers. Easier than thinking up anything of my own.

Best cover of the week came from this class at Beavers Community Primary in Hounslow. As ever, this cracking cover took no longer to draw than the ones I'm disappointed with. Then when I coloured it, at home later, I chanced to drop in photo backgrounds and suddenly they were outstanding. Oh if my cheap art were so successful every time. These were the two groups with whom I made the slightly more serious Hounslow Histories comic (see here). But rather than make the cover about the main topic, I let them go wild on it, and this is what we got. And ain't I glad.

The celebs these groups to appear in my demonstration strip were Donald Trump (twice), Nicki Minaj, Michael Jackson and Kim Kardashian.

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.  

Hounslow Histories - Art Reach comic by kids

Thanks to the lovely folk of Art Reach, I have been able to work with the pupils of Beavers Community Primary School in Hounslow and, together, we've produced an 8 page full colour comic that's going to be given away free at the Night Of Festivals later this month. Unlike the previous projects I did for Magna Carta in Lincoln and Barking, and the migration comics I did in Milton Keynes, which were produced with a number of schools over as many as four days, with another week left for me to finish the artwork, this whole project was completed with just one day of classes, and compiled, edited, coloured and delivered by me between Friday and Sunday. Yes, you may be impressed.  I think it's the best of the comics I've done with kids like this, especially because, unlike its predecessors, every single drawing (if not all the words, or the colours) is by the pupils themselves. Well done Beavers, I hope you like it.

 

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. 

Vauxhall & Brighton - 3 previews, with scissors & sellotape

Three shows in a row is a perfect way to develop a show, and that’s what the Socks’ Roll Up got with a one-off at Vauxhall Comedy Club on Thursday followed by Saturday and Sunday at Komedia Brighton.

And it was some proper scissors and sellotape editing, done in our hotel in Worthing on the Friday, that really knocked the show into shape. Since Halifax last week I’ve written two brand new songs, both good, and one way more successful than I thought it was going to be. With those, the loss of some material since Halifax and the introduction of more and, by golly, we’re getting there.

(That scissors and sellotape editing in full).

Material lost since Halifax: Gypsy Fortune Teller and City Of Stars Song

Brighton Running Order:

Intro gags good, Euro song teaser good

I’m A Sock

Greatest Showman music - ok

Gags Ringling, 3 Rings - ok (tightened after Vauxhall)

Philip Astley - not bad, music - good

Philip Astley part 2 - not working, has to go

NEW: Music Hall Medley - excellent

(Moved to earlier in the show after Vauxhall)

Gags - Cottle, Chipperfield, Burlesque - good

(Moved after Vauxhall)

Performance Artist - good

Audience Suggestions - good. (Vauxhall = human cannonball, also at Brighton 2; Brighton 1 = juggling & lion tamer; Brighton 2 also did contortionist)

Annie The Elephant - not bad. Better now it’s not first song.

Juggling Doctor Who - ok, variable for laughs

Magic - always excellent, now blends in cos we’ve had good laughs already by now.

Nicole Kidman 1 - good, tighter after Halifax

Lady In Pants - good, faster & shorter after Halifax

NEW: Reworked Clown, much funnier after Halifax. Shortened after Vauxhall.

Pagliacci - good. Possibly should be earlier?

Greggs Song - now with new costume, good

NEW: Clown Song - good. Some v good laughs

Nicole Kidman 2 - good, but lose the knob gags

Euro Brexit Song - good

NEWISH: Grand finale (all rewritten since Halifax) 

Props & LBJ costume - good. Got it right by Brighton 2

Moses & LBJ - good

Pilot - ok, could have more material

Nicole as Mary - good

Clown scene - getting better, keep making it clearer

Mixed up costumes - getting better

Nicole & LBJ resolution - getting there

Final gag - ok, but not the best punchline.

I still think we should end on a song, but that’s where we are right now. At Brighton 1 the audience were laughing brilliantly throughout, with a higher proportion of first timers, and people telling me it was the funniest thing they’d ever seen. Also lots of sock-selfies after the show, which is always a good sign. Brighton 2 was a smaller crowd but similarly appreciative. Vauxhall only had 5 people, but that was a good test of the material, so helpful.

Next stop The Harlequin in Redhill.

UPDATE: We gave them the same running order in Redhill, to great response. It's still clear that we could use one great new sketch to make the show perfect, and that some bits need trimming and are in not quite the right order. We moved the Magic routine by mistake to slightly later (between Clown and Pagliacci), still not quite the right place for any of those three.

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

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!

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.

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!

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. 

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:

SUPERHEROES 

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

SHAKESPEARE

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

MINGING DETECTIVES

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!