Art Pickles and his whistling yo-yo

Who today remembers world yo-yo champion Art Pickles who endorsed and recommended a breakthrough in yo-yo technnology - the first whistling yo-yo? I do for a kick-off, thanks to one of the best Christmas presents I received this year -  the best of the Eagle comic in the 1950s.

The book features an amazing array of adverts from the '50s including the unique whistling yo-yo (reduced from 3/- to 1/6d and personally autographed by Art) which was available when you bought Outspan oranges - although the connection between oranges and yo-yos escapes me. There was a coupon so maybe, in order to receive your whistling yo-yo, you had to send that in with some orange peel.

You could also buy Dan Dare raincoats (Dan was the pilot of the future for those of you who didn't know). These guaranteed that you would "look smart and keep warm all year round". One thing puzzles me. If Dan Dare was zooming around outer space why did he need a "Cravanette-proofed" gaberdine raincoat? Does it rain on Mars?

Dedicated followers of fashion could complement their raincoat with a Dan Dare tie. In one of the comic strips featuring the Pilot of the Future  it was predicted that by 1996 cricket would feature wickets with four stumps. Nice try, Dan but no cigar.

It all brought back memories of a rubber Dan Dare glove puppet which I had when I were a lad (hours of fun for everyone) It would probably be worth thousands now on the open market - the sort of thing that they clamour for on the Antiques Roadshow. Alas, it was chucked out along with all my Superman and Victor comics not to mention those Beano and Film Fun annuals. Mothers have a lot to answer for...

Is Cheetah the Chimp Dead?



Nice family snapshot of the Tarzans at home

 Apparently the chimp who played Cheetah in the old black and white Tarzan films died last month in an animal sanctuary in Florida.

He was said to be aged 80 which caused one expert to say it couldn't possibly be Cheetah the movie monkey as "living into your 70s is pushing the limits of chimp biology".

The woman who runs the sanctuary claims Johnny Weismuller, the ex-Olympic swimmer who played the first Tarzan, left the chimp to her in his will and that the the monkey "was soothed by Christian music and also enjoyed finger painting and watching football, though she was unsure if he had any favorite teams". 

Mia Farrow, whose mother Maureen O'Sullivan, played the definitive and by far the prettiest and sexiest Jane, spread the word about the chimp's death on her Twitter account. Apparently her mother always referred to Cheetah as "that bastard". Nice.

Creating Posters for Newport Playgoers - 'St Trinian's'

As well as designing the posters for all eight forthcoming productions by Newport Playgoers, I also agreed to do the one for Dolman Youth Theatre's 'St Trinian's' which is at the Dolman Theatre from 8 - 10 December.

My first attempt at re-creating
a Ronald Searle St Trinian's
schoolgirl

This was a joy to do as I've always loved the drawings of Ronald Searle who created the fiendish schoolgirls as cartoons for magazines and books before they were turned into a series of highly successful films.

One of my personal heroes, John Lennon said, "The two people who have probably had the greatest influence on my life are Lewis Carroll and Ronald Searle" and you can see that influence at work in Lennon's very loose, surreal drawings.

A hockey-wielding schoolgirl

Searle probably isn't as celebrated in the UK as he once was, but his influence has been immense - you only have to see his work to appreciate this. Another of my favourite artists, Quentin Blake, is clearly influenced by Searle.

Wouldn't want to meet her on a
dark night...

Among his other work, Searle created the images for films such as 'Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines' and 'The Lavender Hill Mob' as well as scores of illustrations for advertising campaigns, books and magazines. Some great examples of his work can be seen on this excellent blog dedicated to Searle:  http://ronaldsearle.blogspot.com/

A blonde bombshell - originally
drawn by Seale smoking a cigarette
which I omitted from my version

For the poster I decided to do my own versions of some of Searle's wildcat schoolgirls. However, his very free style is not easy to imitate - it takes years of practice to draw in a style that looks effortless - and it took me many attempts before I was happy with the results.

When I had five that I thought were good enough, I coloured them in - using a similar watercolour wash employed by Searle - then composed the poster using InDesign. 

Creating Posters for Newport Playgoers - 'Humble Boy'

First attempt at drawing the title character

I had never heard of the play 'Humble Boy' by Charlotte Jones when I began the task of creating a poster for it.

Once again the internet came to my rescue, providing examples of other posters and various synopses. Apparently it's a re-working of 'Hamlet' - and bees and bee-keeping play a big part.



Second attempt at drawing Felix



I decided that I needed to draw the title character, Felix Humble. He's a lecturer at Cambridge University so I added glasses to make him look academic.

The action of the play takes place in a garden so that's where I wanted to put him, surrounded by bees - possibly with a bee landing on his nose.



Coloured version



The cartoon bee





I wasn't happy with my first attempt at drawing him, so started again. I knew I wanted to create the face and the bee separately and then put them together when I composed the final poster.



For the second drawing of the face I added more detail and once happy with it, used Photoshop to add basic colours. I then drew a large cartoon-style bee and coloured that. After that, I drew some flowers and a swarm of bees; then put the whole lot together to make the poster below.

Creating Posters for Newport Playgoers - 'Fawlty Towers'

When I rather reluctantly agreed to design the posters for Newport Playgoers' 88th Season, I decided that, in order to avoid any problems with copyright, I would create the images for the posters myself.

Original line drawing of Basil

First production of the new season will be 'Fawlty Towers' featuring a range of instantly recognisable characters such as manic hotel owner Basil, his wife Sybil, hapless Spanish waiter Manuel and Polly the maid. There was plenty of reference material available for their faces - from photos to drawings.



Coloured and cleaned-up version of Basil

 The one I spent most time on was Basil, as played on TV by John Cleese. I decided to concentrate on the characters' head and shoulders, using simple clean lines.

 After doing a version I thought captured the character I put it into Photoshop where I added the colours, layer by layer.

As well as the characters, I realised it was also important to draw the shape of the iconic sign from outside the hotel for the title of the play to go in.



Cartoon in colour of Manuel
the Spanish waiter

 With all the artwork finished, it was then a case of importing them all into Adobe InDesign and playing with a range of different compositions  to create the final poster, which would serve as a template for all the other posters.

Next: Creating the poster for 'Humble Boy' by Charlotte Jones. Click here to read it.

Bad times in downtown Barcelona



Javier Bardem in Biutiful

Last night I went to see 'Biutiful'. Almost two hours of non-stop despair in downtown Barcelona. In its review, the Guardian reported, "A surface tension of liquid misery is stretched over this movie, like unshed tears on a brimming eyeball". Spot on. A barrel of laughs, it ain't, but it is a very powerful film that brings home the squalor and desperation that are an everyday part of the lives of many.

It had everything - cancer, alcoholism, drugs, bi-polar disorder, gay Chinese gangsters, illegal immigrants, communication with the dead, corrupt cops, misery porn-chic and dead Chinese being washed up on the beach.

Gwen Taylor and Keith Barron in 'Duty Free'

A very marked contrast to the episode of 80s Spanish-set sitcom 'Duty Free' which I had watched on daytime TV earlier in the day. Keith Barron was trying to cheat on his wife, the lovely Gwen Taylor, in a seedy tourist bar whilst being spied on by Pedro the waiter. Talk about chalk and cheese.

Jolson impersonations in Hitler's bunker

Just seen the photo of Eva Braun dressed up as the late, great Al Jolson. She looks very fetching, if you like that sort of thing.

It is particularly poignant that this was taken in the bunker during the closing overs of the war. Hitler was obviously feeling less than chirpy at this point as all his plans for world domination lay in ruins, and Eva thought that her famous rendition of 'Swanee River' might cheer him up.

History does not record the Fuhrer's reaction to this but suffice to say he put a loaded Luger to his head and pulled the trigger. "That could have gone better," she must have thought. That's show business.

The drama of crazy golf

My play 'Bunkered' finally had a full cast for a rehearsal - and it was marvellous to see them all bringing my characters to life. More people also equals more laughs.

Particularly good to see Alex Wilson become belligerent businessman Bulstrode and playing crazy golf with his very bored "personal assistant" Poppy played by Sam Jones.

Here's a photo of them in action.

To see them in the flesh come along to the Hole in One Act Play Festival at the Dolman Theatre in Newport, 12 - 16 October. For tickets and more info phone 01633 263670.

The play’s the thing

I was really pleased to hear that one of the plays I entered for Newport Playgoers’ One Act Play-Writing Competition had been selected for the forthcoming festival.

The theme of the plays was ‘golf’ of which I know precious little, except for the occasional highly competitive game of crazy golf I play with my wife Caroline. So I wrote about that – a down-at-heel crazy golf course that’s on the verge of bankruptcy because it’s at the wrong end of the recently revamped seafront.

The plays were judged by Frank Vickery, regarded by many to be Wales’s top playwright, and out of the 40+ plays entered, he chose three from a shortlist of 11. My play ‘Bunkered’ will now be part of the Hole in One Act Play Festival at the Dolman Theatre in Newport from 12 – 16 October 2010.

Caroline will direct it and we’re currently putting together a cast and desperately trying to find items for the set – namely, a small shed and a large ornamental windmill obstacle! As things progress, I hope to make a video diary of the play’s progress from page to stage, and will be posting it here.  For more information about the Festival, visit my blogsite: http://newportplaygoers.wordpress.com/

'Allotment Keeper' - the Video

Here's my video of the opening of the latest exhibition of photographs by Betina Skovbro - 'Allotment Keeper'.

More on great ventriloquists of our time

When I wrote about Ray Allen being the ventriloquist's ventriloquist, a friend of mine remarked that he thought Arthur Worsley was the daddy of all ventriloquists.

This rumour about Arthur Worsley being the daddy of all ventriloquists was started by the News of the World and has no foundation in fact. For all I know, he may have put it about a bit and was a well-known ladies man. Some even said he was the ladies man's ladies man.

He was very good though, mainly because he never said anything, he let the dummy do the talking. So in fact, he was only doing half the work. Very smart man. He was always fond of telling himself off via his dummy: "Who's geen a naughty goy then?".

If you had Arthur Worsley on the same bill as Jimmy James and his gang of nincompoop sidekicks you knew you were in for a side-splitting evening, and would probably still be aching from laughter the next morning. It was the cause of many a sick note and a day off work. Which led to the death of the manufacturing industries in Britain, the rise and fall of the unions, Arthur Scargill, Thatcher and the present cock-eyed administration. All because of one episode of Seaside Special in 1961. It makes you think.

Sketches and Doodles

Found some more arty stuff and decided to share it with the world!

More artwork

Here are some more examples of the stuff I used to sell to grockles and art-lovers at various exhibitions.

A Body Among the Binbags

Finally finished my radio play and sent it off to the producer at BBC Radio Wales suggested to me by Gillian Clarke, Wales' national poet (no less).

My play was originally called 'Always the Mourner', then 'A Bunch of Daffs' and is now 'A Body Among the Binbags'. Third time lucky...

Turning vinyl and tape into MP3 digital

Finally got a decent music machine for easily converting vinyl and cassette tapes into digital mp3 files via a USB flash drive!The first one I ordered looked very nice but the tape player had no rewind - so everytime I found a track I wanted to use, in order to cue it from the beginning I couldn't just rewind, I had to take tape out, turn it round, fast forward a little, take tape out and re-insert and then play. Amazingly fiddly.

Now busy putting all sorts onto my PC - including some tracks by my old band, The BOI, that I had transferred from reel-to-reel onto cassette. Found some real gems including the beautiful 'So Hard to Find' by Drew. All I need now is a way of turning ancient reel-to-reel tapes into mp3 files.