Good Night To Read - first review of PODS & MNDT

 Thanks to Good Night To Read for this, the first review of my books.

There are numerous Shakespearean adaptations available in graphic novel and manga formats. Kev F. Sutherland offers something completely different. Twists on classic plays with clever cultural and literary allusions. Think surprising flavours like rosemary, marshmallow, peppercorns or popping candy- something with an extra zing.

The Prince of Denmark Street
Hamlet thinks he is
Punk cool strutting down Denmark
Street in high dudgeon.

TAGLINE- “Something’s rotten, look at the state of Denmark Street.”

Kev F offers a funny and refreshing homage to London’s ‘Tin Pan Alley’ of the 1960s/1970’s- Denmark Street. Shakespeare’s words transform into music lyrics as Punk Rocker Hamlet is determined to avenge the death of his Elvis styled father. Opening with a panoramic sweep of Denmark Street, the novel injects a trendy atmosphere into the play with a succession of gloriously expressive panels demonstrating Sutherland’s flair as a cartoonist.

Music history fans will love the comical allusions to the music business, the cultural in jokes, the lively word play and the quirky illustrations. A Play List for the Danes and a fascinating afterword about the music scene on Denmark Street add to this vibe. There is a also a teasing twist to Shakespeare’s original plot giving it that extra bit of flavour.

To satisfy students and Shakespeare purists, a full copy of the play is also included.

The Midsummer Night’s Dream Team

Restaurant and Club
are neighbours but all is not
what it seems one night.
As Athens and Woods celebrate one Midsummer’s Night, Philostrate investigates sleight of hand and misunderstandings but there is a twist in the tale. Will honest Puck have good luck? A bubbly homage to crime caper movies, Sutherland enhances the narrative with his trademark comic caricatures giving it a sense of fun. Readers will enjoy the colourful cast and the affectionate tribute to musical stylings though some might be confused by the musical chair nature of the couples’ relationships. Don’t expect pure Shakespeare. Just revel in the laughter and the vivid cameo from the ‘sweet and lovely wall’.

DISCOVER MORE
Instagram & Twitter- kevfcomicart @KevFComicArtist

Website – https://www.kevfcomicartist.com/ #ComicArtMasterclass

Five Facts About Kev F Sutherland

Has drawn comic strips for many publications including The Beano, 2000AD, Star Trek, Viz & Doctor Who Adventures. Wrote Findlay Macbeth as a homage to Abigail’s Party.
Runs a Comic Master Class for schools
Creator of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
Comics Expert & guest on TV shows including Sky Arts’ Portrait Artist of the Year & BBC4’S Battle of the Books. Stand Up Comedian

QUOTE– Kev F on his Comic Masterclass
The classes aim to educate and enthuse pupils in comic and cartoon art, teaching them all techniques and tricks of the trade, presented at a level suitable for each age of pupil. By the end of every session we aim to have created a brand new School Comic and to have drawn an individual caricature of every pupil.”- Kev F. Sutherland.

Bob Lost His Friends - the kids comics of January

 

I'm back, baby, I'm back. These are the 6 comics I've made with kids in January, in my online Comic Art Masterclasses. It's half as many classes as I managed in January 2020, but dammit it's more than I thought we'd be up to by now. And February's looking positively busy. Vive le online!

These comics are from classes with St Patricks in Denny in Falkirk, Little Paxton in Cambridgeshire, Ravenhurst in Leicester, Georgetown in Tredegar South Wales, and a class organised by me. That's one flight, and drives of 2 to 5 hours each way that I've dodged.

The celebrities these kids chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, David Attenborough, Taylor Swift, Freddie Mercury, Eminem, and Billie Eilish.

My next classes, all on Zoom, are listed below. See you there.

Sat 6 Feb - Comic Art Masterclass organised by Kev F

Weds Feb 15 - Acorn Arts Penzance

Tues Feb 16  - North Wall Oxford

Thurs Feb 18 - Arts Depot Finchley

Sat Feb 27 - Chesterfield

Sat Mar 6: Bento Class 

Sat Mar 20:  Zion Bristol

The Trouble With Teams

I was delighted to do another Comic Art Masterclass with a school this week, I'm always delighted to. It's my bread and butter, bring on more schools. But oh, if only more schools were allowed to use Zoom, rather than the problematic Microsoft Teams, which I find so user-unfriendly it's unbelievable.

My problem - and if there's anyone out there who can solve it, I'd be overjoyed - is that Teams doesn't allow me to see a full size image of myself, the presenter, in the way that the kids see it. On Zoom this is called Speaker View, and one can easily alternate between that and Gallery View, to see either a screen-full of kids or oneself. Teams only offers, as you can see in the image above, a postage stamp sized picture of me, positioned really unhelpfully at the foot of the screen. This means that, in order to check out my own image, I have to look down, so that instead of making eye contact with the kids and the camera, I appear to be looking at my feet in a shifty way.

Here you see, on a Zoom screen (above), that even in Gallery View, my picture remains up top near the camera. I raised this problem on Facebook, and someone asked why I need to see myself anyway?

The answer is that I work on a flipchart, I look at the kids work, and I hold artwork up to the screen and even do some drawings up close to the screen, all of which necessitates me moving back and forth. Which means that, without a 'monitor' view of myself, I can't be sure whether the kids can see the bit of art I'm holding up, whether it's catching the light badly, whether they can see the bit of the flipchart I'm drawing on, and even whether my head's getting cut off, which can easily happen.

This is before we even get to the problem of greenscreen, which works easily in Zoom but doesn't seem to be available to Mac users in Teams, and to the new problem that occurred with this mid-week class whereby the kids faces weren't all visible! You can probably see in that picture up top, taken before most kids had joined, that I was only able to see 9 of them as photos, the rest remained as initials at the foot of the screen. This meant that getting a show of hands needed to be done by using the 'hands up' button, and seeing their artwork as we went along was impossible.

Quite why Microsoft Teams has to be so badly designed and inflexible, I can't see. Zoom has managed to deliver all the things a presenter needs, and is good for the audience to use. Teams seems to doggedly make itself awkward, inflexible, and user-unfriendly at every possible turn. And, of course, schools and their local councils have, largely, allowed the use of Teams but don't allow Zoom. No, I don't know why either.

If anyone knows how to make my own image bigger on Teams, to ensure all the kids faces are visible, and to make the green screen function work on a Mac, I would be delighted to hear from you.

UPDATE Friday Jan 29:More fun with Microsoft Teams this afternoon, with another school. First up I couldn't join cos I wasn't a member of the school team. The solution? They had to send me the email and the password of one of the teachers. That's how security works.

Then, pleasantly, I finally made greenscreen work. Hooray. But wait - where's my flipchart gone? Yes, Microsoft Teams' version of virtual backgrounds only works by isolating the speaker, not actual greenscreen. Which meant my flipchart, and any piece of artwork I tried to hold up, vanished. Could this piece of software be any more rubbish?

Yes, it turns out it could. Cos, now I was acting as one of the teachers, I started getting the "Waiting in lobby" notifications which appear, unhelpfully, slap bang in the middle of the screen. This happened twice while I was trying to draw a kid's face, and had to just wait until it cleared.

And are there more faults with this dreadful program? there are. Cos for half a dozen kids, whenever I tried to "Pin" their image to draw them, I just got a screen of (ironically) green. Use Zoom, schools. Please! Just. Use. Zoom.  

My next classes, all on Zoom, are listed below. See you there.

Sat 6 Feb - Comic Art Masterclass organised by Kev F

Weds Feb 15 - Acorn Arts Penzance

Tues Feb 16  - North Wall Oxford

Thurs Feb 18 - Arts Depot Finchley

Sat Feb 27 - Chesterfield

Sat Mar 6: Bento Class 

Sat Mar 20:  Zion Bristol

Art Centres classes - an exciting experiment

 

I may have mentioned that I've spent most of January emailing every school I can find (at the rate of 400 a day, which is the gmail limit, now you ask). I've had a few responses and some good bookings building up. But it wasn't until Tuesday of this week (the 26th) that I got round to emailing all the Art Centres.

Two days later I already have four classes lined up with art centres with, I hope, more to come. They've certainly responded with a hit rate that must be a few thousand times higher than schools. I emailed 203 art centres and have heard from half a dozen. Of the few thousand schools I've emailed, I've only heard from a dozen so far. It's almost like they're a bit busy or something.

So far I have classes lined up with North Wall Arts in Oxford (Feb 16), Arts Depot Finchley (Feb 18), and Zion Arts in Bristol (Mar 20). The fourth class is something a little different.

Class Bento is an organisation that started in Australia and has now expanded into the UK. It offers experiences in, I guess, a virtual bento box. Things like cookery classes and art classes. So, at no expense to myself other than a percentage of sales, I've listed a class with them on March 6th. As you can see from the ad I've made, based on how it appears on their website, they've retitled the class and changed the description slightly. But they say they know how to sell these things, so let's see how that works out.

The acid test for all these events is whether they can sell them. As I've noted before regarding my online classes, when I travel to a local arts centre to do events in person, the arts centre is usually able to attract local kids from their mailing list or regular attendees, and we regularly find ourselves turning kids away. But since classes moved online, with the whole world as my potential audience, I've been finding it hard to attract the numbers. Let us see if these four classes, with their own mailing lists and different pricing structures, can find attendees that I wouldn't be able to find on my own.

Currently all of these classes are competing with my own self-produced Comic Art Masterclass on Feb 6th, the only one apart from Class Bento that's on sale yet, and whose tickets, with a week to go, stand at just 6 sold. Now let us see which of the four delivers

UPDATE: Acorn Arts Penzance now added, on Feb 15th

UPDATE Feb 4: Arts Depot has sold out the morning class and added an afternoon. They're winning so far!

UPDATE Feb 4: And then there were seven! Chesterfield Borough Council have added a class, on Feb 27th. Tickets just £3.50 (they pay me half the fee as a guarantee, I make up the rest from ticket sales)

UPDATE:The results of the first four days of art centre classes can be seen in this blog.

Sat 6 Feb - Comic Art Masterclass organised by Kev F

Weds Feb 15 - Acorn Arts Penzance

Tues Feb 16  - North Wall Oxford

Thurs Feb 18 - Arts Depot Finchley

Sat Feb 27 - Chesterfield

Sat Mar 6: Bento Class 

Sat Mar 20:  Zion Bristol

Murder Mystery, lessons learned from parties

For Felicity's birthday this year she treated us all to a murder mystery called Sherlock In Homes. Performed by a Bristol based company called Sharp Teeth Theatre, in association with the Wardrobe Theatre, at was a Zoom hosted piece with five actors, set around a murder in a circus.

The Inspector (LeShart, see above) hosted things and explained the crime. Then we separated out into Breakout Rooms where each of the five suspects took it in turns to come in and be questioned by us. I was, of course, playing close attention because of what I intend doing with my Socks Murder Mystery in February. The big revelation for me was Polls, which I've now worked out how to do, and also the management of the Breakout Rooms, which I'm practicing. They had the advantage of 5 performers, so can keep multiple conversations going on at once, whereas I'll be having all the parts played by the two Socks (and both socks played by me, as well as having to run the Breakout rooms).

The performance lasted 90 minutes and had great improv, very well done by all the performers. After which we joined a new Zoom link and continued the party at Felicity's. It had much more of the feel of a party than other recent events we've done (eg our inter-Christmas party which lacked the buzz of my birthday party Treasure Hunt, probably the last really good one). Both Hev and I commented the next day that it felt like the morning after a proper party, in a good way.

It's still hard to make a Zoom event feel like a room full of people, with the ability to nip into a corner and have smaller chats, but there are worse ways to spend your time.

I am now busy applying everything I learned from last night, and from the technical issues of Friday night's Socks Burns show, to making the Socks Murder Mystery into the best show yet.

UPDATE: Completing a weekend of Zoom parties, on Monday night, Burns Night itself, Tilly & James threw a party. It was very successful indeed. Only three little bursts of games, one drawing the pictures you see above, another being a scavenger hunt, and the third being reading verses of Address To The Haggis between us, the rest was just chatting. Nearly three hours passed most pleasantly, and I wasn't even drinking, which is quite remarkable. James had yet another trick with Zoom I hadn't seen before, by which the viewer can enlarge or reduce the screens they're being shown. Not sure if that can be applied to the Socks shows, but experimenting continues. (I know how to do polls already, so we're learning).

Feb 12: Interactive Murder Mystery

https://quarrytheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873623223

Burns Night report - a success, with some hitches

The Scottish Falsetto Socks' Burns Night Spectacular was a success, it would seem, with 37 paying punters who sounded happy at the end. But my was it fraught with problems.

The first was that the sound from the video clips, which I use for the musical numbers, wasn't coming through. This has happened once before, and was quickly resolved right at the start of the show in question (Hallo Ian, I think). This time I discovered the problem at 7.30, half an hour before showtime. And it was only Hev's searching online that found the solution. There's a setting on the Mac, a tickbox in System Preferences, that had somehow unticked itself. Having ticked it I then had to check out of Zoom and restart it. So the people who'd already joined the waiting room had to be told to leave and come back again.

With 10 minutes to spare, just time to start the countdown video, I restarted the Zoom session and the sound was working. Note to self: put music in the Countdown. I have always had music in the Countdown video. Then I was finding some people liked to chat through it, so for the Hogmanay Quiz I had a silent countdown. That was okay cos I was doing all the talking. This time, cos I was busy sorting technical issues, it was just 10 minutes of awkward silence. So, next time, music in the countdown, just kept at a level people could talk over if they wanted.

The show started well, and I don't think I came across as flustered as I felt, and for the first 40 minutes we had a show going great guns (see Running Order and links below). Then, at 8.40pm, when I was coming to the end of Life Of Burns and about to introduce Dean Friedman, disaster struck as it has never struck before - the broadband cut out. 

Suddenly I was looking at a buffering wheel and a screen that told me the session had ended, and the recording of the session was processing. Hev, through in the lounge acting as Fag Ash Lil the usherette, was also cut off. 

Broadband returned after a couple of minutes and we rejoined the session. And, oh so luckily, Dean had reminded me to make him a co-host at the start. So he was able to spotlight himself and do his musical number, which was supposed to happen then anyway. That was godsend and he is a total star, the saviour of the hour.

The Socks then did our world premiere, the first ever Zoom performance of 4'33". It was brilliant, far and away the hit of the show. I was doing at at the request of film maker Sam Vladimirsky, who was going to include it in a documentary. I knew it was going well when I could hear Heather laughing from the front room. There was great laughter throughout.

Sadly the other thing I knew, as we were doing it, is that it wasn't recording. Because the recording of the first 40 minutes of the show was still processing, I couldn't hit Record for the rest of the show. And Sam wasn't able to make it to be in the audience, so the only people who'll ever see it were the people who were there. I also failed to record St Andrew, which was also great.

Then came our next musical number, Always A Bastard, and because of the restart, the sound had gone again on video clips. (I'd realise this when, immediately on return, I'd tried playing the newly made trailer for the Murder Mystery show. Bizarrely some listeners claimed they could hear the sound, but most (inc my second screen and Hev) definitely couldn't). So that number was dropped and, presciently, Dean dived in and played the song he was meant to play a short while later, Don't You Ever Dare. Ironically neither of Dean's songs got recorded either.

I was finally able to restart the recording for the finale, Macbeth, which went well, and led into a very entertaining group rendition of Auld Lang Syne. I came away thinking the show had been a flop, because I was so stressed from all the technical issues, but watching the videos (such as they are) it turns out it was a fine show, and greatly enjoyed.

I'm dotting the i's, crossing the t's, and working out extra backups and alternatives for the Feb 12th Murder Mystery, not least because it's selling so well. (By Sunday it had already sold 17 tickets, with three weeks to go till the show. The joys of being on someone else's mailing list!)

BURNS NIGHT RUNNING ORDER

Intro routine - Piping Them In

I’M A SOCK (song)

Selkirk Grace

BURN’S NIGHT (song)

Address To The Haggis

WHAT SCOTLAND HAS MADE (song)

Stereotypes

Life Of Burns

DEAN FRIEDMAN guest slot 1

Murder Mystery Ad (video)

Story of St Andrew

ALWAYS A BASTARD (song)

John Cage 4’33”

“Where’s Dean Friedman when you need him?”

DEAN - DON’T YOU EVER DARE

Macbeth

AULD LANG SYNE (song)

The End

Feb 12: Interactive Murder Mystery

https://quarrytheatre.ticketsolve.com/shows/873623223

Socks Interactive Murder Mystery Feb 12th

SCOTTISH FALSETTO SOCKS: INTERACTIVE MURDER MYSTERY

Earth's Funniest Footwear, stars of more Bedford Fringes than any other act (official!) have teamed up with The Quarry Theatre at St Lukes to present their first ever Interactive Murder Mystery. Spot the clues, question the suspects, and solve the crime, live on Zoom.

Expect the usual songs, sketches, socks and violence from the award-winning Socks (Funniest Joke at Bath Fringe 2018, and will they shut up about it?), with a brand new spin. You're helping them solve crime! Probably.

Doors 7.45, show starts 8pm. Suitable for age 12 and over (some grown up language, the rest very immature). One hour show, may overrun. The Socks' performing team will join you in the virtual bar afterwards. Tickets are here.