Socks vids - hits from the pits

Enjoy these folks, some treats from the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre archives.








Okay, I just put this up so anyone glancing at our blog for the first time doesn't see some boring notes about our noisy neighbours. Whatever, keep on enjoying.

Noise reports a log

Anyone reading this blog will find little of interest. We had trouble with noise from the downstairs neighbours on Friday night June 4th and I kept a live log of it on Twitter. Because Tweets disappear after a while, I am collecting them up here so I will have access to the record when future events occur (which we hope they won't).

It began earlier in the evening, but this was when I started writing:

Oh joy. One of our neighbours is testing the stereo to see if it goes up to eleven. Well. They have been warned...
8.03pm BST (times amended from Twitter time) Jun 4th

8.15pm, the first time downstairs music was so loud it shook our table. So it continues. #neighbours 8:21 PM Jun 4th via web

I'm happy to report our downstairs neighbours are watching Britain's Got Talent. I wonder if Britain also has a volume control? #noise 8:31 PM Jun 4th via web

So now I have video of sound coming thru our floor while our TV's on mute. a) how pathetic do I feel? & b) what am I supposed to do with it? 8:44 PM Jun 4th

We're surrounded. It's a bit like being in the Winchester in Shaun of the Dead. 9:23 PM Jun 4th via web

And on the plus side, BGT resumes in 5 minutes, and the neighbours have spent half an hour getting ready to get louder. Brace yourself floor 9:25 PM Jun 4th via web

If any of our other neighbours are reading this, that sound's coming from the basement. One of us is ill or we would go out and escape. 9:30 PM Jun 4th via web

Now have video* of surface of glass of water being shaken by downstairs' noise. Thanks for the idea #drwho 9:40 PM Jun 4th via web

*NB: I realise bass notes and vibrations don't record well on video, but it gives some idea.

It is like living inside someone else's stereo. At what point do you call the police? #neighbours 9:40 PM Jun 4th via web

Have just been next door. They too are being disturbed by downstairs noise. 9:41 PM Jun 4th via web

Thought for one blissful moment the basement had read Twitter and turned it down. They were clearly just changing a CD. Okay... 9:53 PM Jun 4th via web

@S...d They have 50 minutes. Thanks for the tip. 10:06 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to S...d

@d....d 11pm seems to be the official cut off. 49 minutes and counting... 10:06 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to d...d

@r...tes We've called the cops once before, in 1996. Once every two decades, not a bad hit rate. We'll be patient. 10:07 PM Jun 4th via web in reply to ra...s

Thanks for this tip http://www.noisyneighbours.net/involving-the-authorities/ To everyone who's looking forward to a peaceful night 10:10 PM Jun 4th via web

The good news, they've all gone out downstairs and the noise has stopped. The bad news? Pubs close. #neighbours 10:20 PM Jun 4th via web

Socks fans will realise tonight's return gig in Poole got cancelled. Means I was at home & H didn't have to suffer alone. Alls well that etc 10:40 PM Jun 4th via web

Reassured re our disturbed night by typing "neighbours" into Twitter & reading everyone else's tales of woe. We are not alone. Night all 11:56 PM Jun 4th via web

Downstairs neighbours have turned in @ last after party that started in the afternoon. Must have work tmrw. Now where did I put that hoover? 11:58 PM Jun 4th via web

Edinburgh Fringe programme nostalgia

The new Edinburgh Fringe programme comes out this week, and that's long been a thrilling moment in our household. In more recent years it's been fun to see where my show's advert appears in the prog, and to see the ads by the other acts. But long before I started taking shows to Edinburgh, I went up as a punter. And for any regular Fringe goers, seeing for the first time the incredible range of entertainment that's going to be taking place in August can only be exciting.

So, if you're familiar with the Fringe and its programme, here's something that will count as either nostalgia or history, depending on your age. The Fringe programme from 1984. (Don't worry, not all of it). Click on any page to see it in full. Enjoy...



74 pages long, compared to 2007's 288 pages, it begins by boasting:
"...last year 425,500 tickets were sold for 6,886 performances. Over 500 different participating groups took part, made up of nearly 5,000 individual performers."

Let's have a look at the shows that were on in 1984. Don't worry, they all fit into just two pages...




Theatre shows take up 2 and a half columns, Comedy takes up just a third of a column - and includes Accidental Death Of An Anarchist and Comedy Of Errors!

But look at those others categories: Revue? Cabaret (including Alexei Sayle)? Mime? Bloody mime? Truly the past was a foreign country, they did things differently then.

Nowadays the display ads by, mostly, comedy shows, are ubiquituous and colourful. In 1984 there was only one display ad booked by a comedy act.

One ad.

It was, naturally, black and white. And this was it:



We went to that gig. Alexei Sayle died on his arse, the show having been papered and being peopled by drunks from the street who didn't get him. And look at those ticket prices. Three whole quid? The cheek.

Here's the rest of what passed for "comedy off the telly". The only other display ad booked by comedy shows in 1984:



St Marys Hall? Where the hell is St Marys Hall? I went and I don't even know where it was. And whatever became of Paul Martin? He seemed quite promising.

And this is what was on at the Pleasance in 1984.



What? Nine shows? No stand up? The Edinburgh Comedy Awards would have difficulty drawing up a shortlist from that lot. They'd have to look at other venues or something. (The Pleasance courtyard was still a car park, and there was an art exhibition taking up an entire floor).

You can order the new programme, and of course see all shows online and book tickets, at edfringe.com

Always A... - New from the Socks

New from the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, one song sings about the other. He's Always A...



Eat your piano out Fyfe Dangerfield. And you, Billy Joel. And John Lewis? This version is available for your next ad campaign.

World Cup 2010 Wags Tale - new from the Socks

New from the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, a look at the World Cup.

Saatchi Video Artist of the Day - Heather Tweed

What a brilliant find. Online, today, the Saatchi Gallery's Video Artist Of The Day is our own, our very own, Heather Tweed.
Saatchi Gallery. Click on that, scroll down and there she is.



It links to Heather's Anubis Walks: Tate video, which you can also see here.

Heather Tweed's work is currently appearing on Governor's Island in New York and will be appearing as part of the Edinburgh Art Festival in August. Find details and contact Heather at heathertweed.co.uk

Terry Pratchett v Doctor Who review

This weekend Terry Pratchett's Going Postal was on Sky and Doctor Who Cold Blood was on BBC. I watched and enjoyed both, and here are some things I concluded:

1) HD is nice but insignificant

We got HDTV for the first time this week, on Virgin Media Cable (at no extra expense, thanks Richard Branson). So I'd been able to watch Dr Who part 1 in HD on Catch Up, making Cold Blood the first episode I would watch live as it was broadcast in HD.

Sky1, for reasons best known to themselves, don't allow their HD version to go out to Virgin customers. This is because they are idiots who want to shake viewers off, I can only imagine. However what we found was that the HD, though nice, didn't signify.

Dr Who was in pin sharp focus which showed any flaws and cheapnesses, and Going Postal looked like a multi million dollar glossy production which one could imagine being ever so slightly sharper in focus if one really was concerned about such trivia.

2) Terry Pratchett was right about plot.

Pratchett had a go in last month's SFX magazine, criticising the writing of Dr Who. He was mostly aiming it at Russell T Davies's stories, pointing out the unsatisfactory nature of Deus Ex Machina plot resolutions, and how much better it is if everything is resolved using an element that's been introduced in the story earlier then forgotten about. We all knew this as writers, and it was a thing Steven Moffat excelled at in his past scripts. And to be fair he has managed to get into most of the stories in the new series. But Pratchett's Going Postal really showed the principles in practice. Every element of the story was neatly and satisfyingly wrapped up, including strands of story that you'd forgotten even needed wrapping up.

However Cold Blood, whose first half Hungry Earth was so promising, ended up terribly. As I shall mither further about in...

3) This series of Dr Who has some rubbish endings

We've had a big crack that appears at the end of many stories into which some bits of the story have clearly fallen. We've had some Daleks just bugger off, as they've done once too often, very clearly intending to return later in the series in order to justify the budget spent on the new designs. We've had the Weeping Angels fall into the big crack in such a way as to suggest they're very clearly going to fall out of it on the other side, possibly in the last two episodes. That same episode had River saying she'd see the Dr again when "The Pandorica Opens" which, lo, turns out to be the name of the episode after next, so that story's clearly not finished. We've had Venice's canals left full of bitey piranha people, I think, we've had the population of the UK left floating on a big turtle (probably going to appear in a Terry Pratchett story), we've had it all be a dream, we've had the Silurians invasion put on hold for 1000 years - no, 990 years cos we were already 10 years into the future - and worst of all we've had Rory killed, not once but twice. First time he stayed dead for about three minutes. This time I give it three weeks. Oh come on, of course he's not properly dead. What's the betting Amy's not even a tiny bit inconsoleable next week? We'll see.

4) The South Park comparison.

I've already read two reviews that have made the "Oh My God They Killed Kenny" comparison with the various deaths of Rory, and I'm sure there are more out there. Why did this happen in, effectively, subsequent episodes? Very very very bad script editing, series structuring, or something to allow that to happen.

5) Worst, nobody cares

It is the biggest tragedy of Series 5 of Doctor Who that there is no tragedy in it. We just don't care about Amy because she just doesn't seem like a real person. By the second week of series 1, Rose was the centre of the drama, she was the star around whom the story revolved. We'd met her Mum, her boyfriend, we felt her boredom, her loneliness, and we shared her excitement at this bloke the Doctor who'd come along. Our involvement with her was maintained, as was our interest in every other person in the story whenever they appeared, as they were fleshed out as real people.

7 year old Amy we got this with. That first episode, Eleventh Hour, was perfect. We felt so sorry for 7 year old Amy, and carried some of that to grown up Amy. Then in episode two we forgot, as did she, that she'd left anyone behind. And in episode 3, the awful Dalek story, she was just a shouty prop, coming up with improbable solutions to ludicrous situations in tight clothes. She was, by that stage, the least convincing Doctor Who sidekick since the 1980s.

By this stage we knew Martha's family, even though they were all a bit rubbish, and she had her role as "rebound companion", and from the start Donna was just a treat, a funny and engaging character who was so empathic to other people she drew you into every drama she was involved in. She made you cry for Ood, for gods sake, bloody useless spaghetti faced Ood. That's how good Donna was.

6) Dr Who Confidential's finding it hard too

DWC was a bit spoilt with David Tennant, a chatty actor who was also a Dr Who fan. And of course with Russell Davies, who could talk for Wales. And when Catherine Tate came on board, the show just overflowed with entertaining chat. Even when Donna had been out of the show for a year and came back for one Christmas special in which, as I recall, she TOOK ONE PHONE CALL AND FELL OVER - she and David managed to appear on TV for, what was it, 72 hours last Christmas?

Matt and Karen, bless their little hearts, just aren't like that. Like Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper before them, they are just actors, and of course they're quite young ones. They simply don't have that much to say. That's not unusual or a bad thing - it's a rare Hollywood starlet who has a great deal to add in an interview about a job where, let's face it, you wear some clothes, run about a bit, and say some words you don't always understand. But to have a whole show based on the behind the scenes making of a TV show, which on two occasions this series has been longer than the episode itself, is a big ask. No other TV show has a "...Confidential", and this series has demonstrated why. (NB: The Dalek episode's Confidential show was much more interesting than the episode itself, and that can't be right).

7) Budgets really do make a difference

Lest I forget Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, did I mention how marvellous it looked? The costumes, the locations, the lighting, the props and the CGI were all outstanding. They filmed entirely in Budapest, and make excellent use of locations both urban and rural, which blended brilliantly with the FX to create a Victorian steam-punk Discworld that looked consistently, er, consistent. And there was no behind the scenes show afterwards to ruin the magic for you.

In comparison Doctor Who, who have made two excursions to Croatia to film, are clearly working on a shoestring budget. Their lighting struggles to impress, they have a lot of small sets with low ceilings and flat floors, and my god if I see them setting one more story in the crypt of a bloody church pretending to be a museum or the bridge of a star ship (or, as in one occasion, a church) I shall not be surprised. I think every square inch of South Wales has now been used at some time in Dr Who, and can I just point out to them that at no point has it ever looked remotely like London. We can tell.

8) The ratings are low. I find out from Gallifrey Base that last week's Doctor Who had the lowest viewing figures since 1989. That doesn't bode well. Though obviously Sky1's will have been lower, especially among diehard HD fans who only have cable.

9) Things can only get better. I'm still a whopping Doctor Who fan, and this season may be the patchiest since it returned in 2005, with the most annoying companion, the least well resolved plots, the most repetitive locations, the least well fleshed out characters, the worst time-slot and the worst ratings, and I think that Sonic Screwdriver looks a bit big... but I still love it. And I'm hoping that when this series finale comes to an end, millions of us will watch it and agree, and by the time of the Christmas Episode we'll think Dr Who has never been better.

10) And I heard a rumour that RTD returns to co-write the Xmas episode with Moffat, which is so good it can't possibly be true.

Here's hoping.