Exeter College Cabaret online after just 28 years

And you thought alternative comedy was born in the 2010s with the revolutionary wit of Michael McIntyre? Far from it. Check out these videos of the Exeter College of Art & Design cabaret from March 1983. This first clip features Mike Dade, who sadly was the first of our alumni to die (in a traffic accident a few years after we left) playing a duet with then 9-year-old Matthew Dunkley (who I cannot imagine being any older than nine, though I'm sure by now he must be), plus a song by Tim Langley and Nick, and a very brief appearance by John Earwaker. Enjoy.



And here we have Dave Wells with one of his mind-boggling magic tricks, Paul Mclaren's poems, and another song by Tim & Nick...




Dave Wells' classic "suffer baby suffer" magic routine


The Prospective Student sketch. These videos are all in mono and will in fact only come out of one ear-hole. That's how we did it back in the day.

Nauseoustalgia - Exeter & Loughborough

Last night we drove home after four days working in Norwich (Comic Art Masterclasses, great fun with great kids), and after the four and a half hour drive I was all-prepared for a two and a half hour drive this morning to take me to Fowey in Cornwall. Imagine my delight when I discovered an email I'd missed from February pointing out that today is Good Friday so the school I'd be working at wouldn't be open, and instead I'll be going there in May. Which means I have a bonus day at home and in the studio to get stuff done and/or take it a bit easier. So I've been indulging myself with a bit of nostalgia.

While we were away, Hev found a thread of photos on Facebook from graduates of Exeter College of Art, some of which we've not seen for 30 years and most of which we've never seen before. A couple of my favourites are below. And, inspired by that, I dug out one from even earlier, my graduation photo from the Foundation Course at Loughborough College of Art back in 1980. Where are they now? I know one draws regularly for Private Eye, at least one's big in the art world, and one went into local government. More than that I'd love to know.



Here (below and top of the page) are some pictures from the college cabarets that I produced at Exeter. It's hard to believe, but I actually developed these slides myself. What, do you think fingerprints and scratches like that put themselves on? Actually there's probably an App that makes photos look that crap nowadays. Enjoy.




More photos from Exeter College of Art on Facebook.

Dr Ghenki's Super-Ethical Happy Sun Time - new comics by kids

It's been the Easter holidays this week and I've spent four days working with kids in Norwich, courtesy of Culture Works East, running my Comic Art Masterclasses and giving them all the chance to produce a comic book in half a day. Here are the front covers of the comics they came up with together.


Click to see them enlarged, and to see a library of hundreds more by kids around the country and the world.


Our coverage this week in the local press.

If anyone wants me to come and show their kids how to do what I've been doing for a living for the last two decades, drop me a line, a comment, a Twitter, smoke signals, the usual methods. Click below to see more, including video and contact details.



RECOMMENDED COMIC BOOKS & GRAPHIC NOVELS for Comic Art Masterclass students, teachers and librarians

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"Comic genius inspires youngsters" - comic class in EDP

I'm honoured and flattered to be the subject of a double-page spread in today's Eastern Daily Press, with an interview and photos from my Comic Art Masterclass in Dereham, Norfolk.



Comic genius inspires youngsters
(Must say I prefer that headline as it appears in the paper)

His comic strips have brought the Bash Street Kids and Doctor Who to life for countless readers. And yesterday Kev Sutherland – an artist with iconic comic The Beano – shared his skills with the next generation of cartoonists at a workshop in Dereham.



The Beano’s sales approached 2m in the 1950s when the likes of Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx were at their prime but numbers are now down to 38,000, and Mr Sutherland said comics are “increasingly a minority sport, especially for younger readers.”

Speaking at Toftwood Junior School, Mr Sutherland said the future for comics among today’s youngsters lies in a different direction and increasingly online.

He said: “They want chain saws, zombies and violence – all the stuff they get in computer games. I want to see books for kids with violence – cathartic and well-reasoned violence. Kids don’t like soft stuff, by and large.

“When you see the stuff the kids have created for themselves, mostly it’s explosive gun-toting hamsters blowing up Jeremy Clarkson or Peppa Pig, and that’s where eight-year-old brains are at.
“I find some people are a bit disturbed by the violence in the stories. They should read Shakespeare or the Bible.”

Many of the one-page comics his audience produced proved his point, with titles ranging from The Killer Tree Gets Simon and Gangster Frenzy to Teletubby Massacre, although Love showed a gentler, surreal streak.

Dereham Neatherd student Josh Crisp, 14, said he uses the internet to read Japanese manga and learn how to create them.

He said: “I read a lot of manga but they are hard to draw. I used to read Beano and had a couple of annuals at home. It was quite good, but I got bored of them.”

Mr Sutherland said stories that interest him inspire his work for the Beano, and he has brought back old characters and written longer stories that children can invest their time in. In one 16-page story, Julius Sneezer returned in the form of an Ofsted inspector.

He said: “It’s when you do long stories you can do things that are worth kids reading. Stuff you read as a kid like Tin Tin and Asterix books are stories where you reward the kids’ attention and you have given them time to have something to read.”

He pointed to the success of manga comic books in Japan, where one story can run for 200 pages and computer games are inspired by comics, rather than drawing away potential readers.
Beano has launched its iPhone app, which entered the top ten most downloaded apps on the Apple news stand within two weeks.

Mr Sutherland has started experimenting with selling his comics on Kindle devices, and last month received £7 from sales in Britain and France.

He said: “If you are driving kids towards words and pictures that can only be a good thing, especially if they are reading the words, rather than just hearing them.”

Mr Sutherland takes heart from the explosion in popular children’s books, but said comics need to be better and more affordable to duplicate their success.

The internet, by avoiding the expense of colour printing, could help with the latter.

He also said comics had one advantage over big-budget films and computer games – children can create their owns strips using exactly the same tools as the professionals.



Added to the main article, there's a piece in the Comments and Opinion section (which I can't find online) continuing my observations that comics could have a revival of interest given the right material. So thankyou EDP for the cracking coverage. And memo to myself, I should pay more attention when doing interviews in class so I don't say things that come across a bit naff. "...last month (he) received £7 from sales in Britain and France" doesn't sound so much witty and self-deprecating as it does pathetic. And "They should read Shakespeare or the Bible" sounds like I'm suggesting those as nice alternatives to violent reading whereas my point was that they are more violent than people think. Ah, whatever, no publicity is bad publicity.

If anyone would like to bring my Comic Art Masterclasses to their school or art centre, do please email or twitter.

Comic Art Masterclasses in Norfolk & Bath

Attention comic-loving kids, I shall be running Kev F's Comic Art Masterclasses in Norwich and Norfolk for four days this week, and you are invited to take part.



I know, nice ad ain't it? All their own work, they being Culture Works who have set up four days of Comic Art Masterclasses. Here are the details:

Monday - Wymondham High School
Tuesday - Dereham
Wednesday - Norwich
Thursday - Norwich


These are all free. And if that weren't enough, on Saturday April 7th in Bath we have another Comic Art Masterclass as part of Bath Comedy Festival, only £6. See you all there.

April in the Scottish Falsetto Socks' calendar

This is how we celebrate April on the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's 2012 calendar, by doing a bit of Trainspotting...



You can still buy the calendar with its 12 unique brand new specially drawn cartoons by Kev F formerly of The Beano. It's good for another 9 months and is a collector's item joy to treasure. Click on the image to see more of the calendar and the link to the shop, or if you can't wait, buy it here.

(NB: Here in my Mum's house we have just spotted that the printed version of the calendar actually has The Krays in the April slot, with Trainspotting not appearing till August. I cannot fathom that, but either way, all looking good. Enjoy).

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's Spring Tour: Bath April 7 • Milford Haven April 12 • Exeter April 13 • Bridlington April 14 • St Andrews April 25 • Aberdeen April 27 • Halifax May 3 • Keighley May 4 • Stafford May 5 • Chorley May 12 • Brighton May 19/20 • Hereford May 27 • Harrogate June 28/29 • Rondo Bath July 9 • Beverly Puppet Festival July 13 • Tring July 19 • Manchester July 20 • Nottingham + Guildford July 21 • Derby July 22 • Bedford July 27 • Edinburgh Fringe August 1-27. Spread the word.



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Meanwhile over at The Sitcom Trials...

Last night I played my first gig with the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre since our return from Adelaide, an excellent opening set at a cricket club in Coddington in Nottinghamshire (might not sound like the big time, but a full house splitting their sides and payment on the night is what this business is all about and that's what we just had).

In the meantime, my last week and half has been full of schools - as you can see my travels with my Comic Art Masterclass have taken me from Blackburn to St Albans, from Brinkworth Earl Danby's to Winterbourne Earl's (no me neither) and next week from Norwich to Fowey in Cornwall (I am more than making up for that blissfull month where I didn't drive at all) - as well as lining up the Socks' two Edinburgh shows this year and preparing for our tour dates next week. On top of all of which has been the return of The Sitcom Trials.


As you can see from the video above The Sitcom Trials has returned to Bristol. Though once the show's exploits were recorded on this blog, it now has a blog of its own, where we've seen the formation of a Bristol team of actors under the wing of writer Vince Stadon, who've put this show together while I was away. Although one thing we did do while I was in Adelaide was select the scripts, a task which involved reading 40 odd scripts and voting on them, which I managed to squeeze into my Adelaide schedule and forgot to mention on the blog.

I've also lined up the next Sitcom Trials show, in London on May 24th it will be entitled The Eurovision Sitcom Contest. Check out the Sitcom Trials blog itself, at sitcomtrials.co.uk for details of how you can take part.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's Spring Tour: Bath April 7 • Milford Haven April 12 • Exeter April 13 • Bridlington April 14 • St Andrews April 25 • Aberdeen April 27 • Halifax May 3 • Keighley May 4 • Stafford May 5 • Chorley May 12 • Brighton May 19/20 • Hereford May 27 • Harrogate June 28/29 • Rondo Bath July 9 • Beverly Puppet Festival July 13 • Tring July 19 • Manchester July 20 • Nottingham + Guildford July 21 • Derby July 22 • Bedford July 27 • Edinburgh Fringe August 1-27. Spread the word.