Raise your banners for Baron Prezza
from shop floor steward to upper bench.
Tell your mother, tell your bezza
to doth their caps for Baron Prezza:
velvet robes meets pickled eggs there
I say the man’s an uber mench!
Bend your knee to Baron Prezza
from shop floor steward to upper bench.
A Sonnet for Radio
I think of you as telly’s older sister,
the old maid of the air waves, staunch and true.
Your stroppy sibling takes a better picture
but thinking men would rather drink with you.
For you can help them drown their midnight sorrow
with arguments or strange progressive noise
and won’t think any less of them tomorrow
when switching to your sober breezy voice.
They love you for your thousand strong impressions
and for your interest in everything
for how you mix tradition with progression
and how you raise their spirits when you sing.
But most of all they count you as their friend
’cause you reflect the good they have in them.
This weekend Dominic Maxwell kindly featured me in The Times. They run a regular column called ‘The Secret of Comedy’.’ Each week a comedian gives his/her view on what makes good comedy. Some people do this quite seriously (timing, punchines) others are more ‘jokey’ in their responses (the suit, hecklers). I guess mine was more serious: I do believe that rhyme can make good comedy, just on its own, regardless of content. We were confined to 200 odd words, I wrote:
“In the wrong hands rhyme can make my stomach turn. Bad rhyme grates. It’s clunky, laboured and above all just really, really cheesy. The secret of any kind of poetic constraint is to make it seem effortless. Once the metre or rhyme starts dominating you, then it all falls apart: “I got a present / it was a pheasant.” No you didn’t, and no it wasn’t.
However, good rhyme can be utterly delightful. And what’s more it can be hilarious. Supremely inane. John Hegley is the master of this: “I am guillemot / I use my bill a lot.” We laugh because the rhyme comes far sooner than we expect it, it’s also technically smart and above all, you can’t argue with the point it makes. The grand cannon of comic poems and songs are filled with great gems like this. Rhyme may not always be fashionable in comedy but it truly delights something child-like in us. Let’s hear it for those songwriters and poets.”
They cut it down to just the second paragraph, which on reflection was a good move. Other examples are John Cooper Clarke’s Burnley.
I’ll tell you once and I’ll tell you firmly
I don’t ever want to go to Burnley
What they do there don’t concern me
Why would anybody make the journey?
It’s the third line that gets me. The understatement of ‘don’t concern me’ is funny in itself, but its the second repition of the rhyme, this time in compound form, that really tickles us, I fancy.
Last week I was featured on a great Radio 4 programme called Doggerel Bard, hosted by my good friend Elvis McGonagall. The show was about comic, and in particular, satirical verse. I talked about rhyme a bit, mentioning Joel Stickley’s poem, The Nakedness of the Long Distance Driver.
Naked truckers
why so many?
If I’m honest
Yes, why any.
Such a silly rhyme - many/any - but it’s inanity, and particularly the bluntness of it (we are expecting something a bit cleverer) cracks me up every time.
Tim Clare often gets laughs from his rhymes. Perhaps not in the inane, almost anti-comedy way that Clarke, Hegley and Stickley have above. I particularly like this run of clever rhymes from Heart of Class:
Marriage forecasts all look gloomy
Cheer up, here’s some grilled halumi
My, this Volvo does feel roomy
drink some zinfandel, then screw me!
Again, the third rhyme is where the laugh comes. I appreciate there is something more than rhyme at work here but the satire alone would fall flat without the rhyme linking this collage of silly middle class images.
Comedy often works in threes and rhyme is no different. A great staple of the comic poet is the stanza consisting of three rhymed lines followed by a chorus line. Tim Clare’s loving parody of this form sums it up better than I could:
Select a setting to evoke
Rhyme with the line that you first spoke
Then undercut it with a joke
This line’s the title
The three point list is a good currency for comedy - we expect the format but not the punchline. Comedy is often about confounding expectations, so the audience need to know what you’re doing before you can confound them. The speed and cadence of poetry can be too confusing to the untrained ear - by the time the audience have the rhythm of what you’re doing - they’ve missed the joke. This is why a three point, rhymed list loosely in iambic tetrameter is a good fall back for the comic poet, his audience, often fans of stand-up comedy, will grasp it a bit quicker than something more complex and he can get down to the important job of making them laugh.
I’ve been thinking about this today because tonight I am doing this gig at The Udderbelly with Chris Addison and Byron Vincent. Chris, a stand-up most famous for his role in The Thick of It, is making his poetry debut, although his book of Cautionary Tales For Grown Ups came out four years ago. It is interesting that to get laughs in poem form Chris has resorted to a century old style of rhymed verse pioneered by the likes of Hilaire Belloc. I’m really looking forward to see how he performs the poems (which are great btw), I’m sure an experienced stand-up like him has a few tricks to show me, so it’ll be an interesting night. What’s more, it’ll be damn funny.
I’ve been listening to a fair bit of Noel Coward of late - here’s the result:
It’s Splendid Being The Infidel (a song for a musical)
They say the world is heading for a meltdown.
They tell me change is coming and it must.
They say that we’re not free
but if you’re asking me
I’d say that most of us aren’t all that fussed.
Yes, life is rather jolly here in Britain.
We’re lolling in a warm suggestive fog.
What need of I for vicars
when I can drop my knickers
then share the gory details on my blog?
It’s stunning what the human mind can do
unshackled from the fiery threat of hell.
I’m lost in dirty thoughts
and not the least distraught
Yes, it’s splendid being Infidel.
It’s wonderful to be the Infidel.
No curate keeping track of all my sins.
When a finger points at me
it means I’ve won the lottery:
It’s You! Now spend it all on pointless things.
So toss your holy books onto the fire
and come and have a cheeky smoke round mine
I’m lying in my filth
and perving on G-GILFs
but that’s not sick - she’s only thirty-nine.
I’m bloody thrilled to be the infidel.
No omnipresent git to cramp my cool.
For life is non-stop gaiety
when you are your own deity
and you and only you can make the rules.
All these religious wars
are nothing but a bore
so tell me now how many have been felled?
You’d burn far fewer flags
if you had porno mags.
What price a wank in these Jihadi cells?
Yes, I’d rather be a heathen
I like my bosoms heaving.
In karma terms I think do quite well.
And though you find me wanton,
you will never find me wanting.
Oh it’s splendid being the infidel.
Why shouldn’t your every waking moment be filled with entertainment?
Cometh the hour, cometh the pad
Six hundred quid, they must be mad
but queues of geeks snake down the street
to buy their slice of techno chic.
They take their VISAs to the limit
to fill the unforgiving minute
a brave new world imagined there:
you take your telly everywhere.
The Perils of Obedience
In 1961 a man
called Stanley Milgram hatched a plan
to show the world what he surmised
the average chap had locked inside.
He wagered our ability
to fight for what we felt to be
the proper, better decent thing
fell victim to our master’s whims.
He got a range of average males
to come and take the test at Yale.
But Milgram’s set-up was a rouse
each chap was paired up with a stooge
(an actor on a little earner)
who always took the role of “leaner”
while particpants were cajoled
in taking on the teacher’s role.
In short the teacher had to shock
the learner every time he got
the answer to a question wrong.
You’d think that it would not take long
for teachers dolling out the volts
to call the process to a halt
to say the whole damn thing was bent
to pull out of the experiment.
But though the teachers weren’t aware
the volts were faked they were prepared
to carry on and in the end
near Sixty-five percent of them
gave out the biggest shock they could
which sadly proved Stan’s theory good
that human backsides like the fence
the perils of obedience.
And now we have a theory to
explain the awful things we do -
the memory of Stanley’s game
reminds us how we pass the blame.
A huge thanks to everyone who voted for Crash! Bang! Wallow! I am very proud to say that we won the National Film Board of Canada short film competition at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.
I’m curating a couple of really exciting gigs at The Udderbelly this summer. The first in June features Laura Dockrill, Kate Tempest and Edinburg Comedy Award Winner Tim Key. The second in July features Byron Vincent plus Thick of It star Chris Addison. Addison wrote a great book of ‘cautionary tales’ a few years ago but has never performed them, on 7 July he will. How exciting. I’m hosting and debuting material from my forthcoming show Cynical Ballads.
With respect to Mr Dylan. And also to Mr Stickley, who suggested six years ago this might be a good thing to write and then failed to do so.
Aisle Sixteen (Revisited)
Well, Tarquin the banker was pinstriped and neat
coked up to his eyeballs and chewing his cheek
when dreaming of methods to catch out the meek
an underling entered and started to speak: Please sir, I need help our investors are starting to scream.
The big man just smiled and replied quite serene: Take all toxic assets to Aisle Sixteen.
The slick perma-tanned arch-svengali of pop
was telling a crowd how he climbed to the top
he boasted of hits and he laughed off the flops
the slavering audience gave him his props. Please tell us, they cried, how you find all these synthetic teens?
Much later he laughed in his black limousine I find them, he whispered, on Aisle Sixteen.
Well, Kelvin the Killjoy stirred hatred for cash
and most of the nation woke up to his trash
each morning’s invective a post-modern mash
of homos and foreigners ripe for a bash.
With underlined adjectives Kelvin would empty his spleen
and crass little Englanders drank it like cream.
The name of this column was Aisle Sixteen.
In tenement Krakow the rumours were rife
a Polish professor petitioned his wife: The good strength of sterling could mean a new life
Lord praise the EU, we can live where we like.
But now he serves lager to kids wearing Armani jeans
and she’s receives two pounds an hour to clean
the mock Tudor mansions on Aisle Sixteen.
Well Herman the writer was canny and wise
his main aim to try and sensationalize
a genre that otherwise drew in the flies
which often meant he won a literary prize.
Each one of them judge by a neo-con pal from the scene
He trotted out trash with a zeitgeist-y theme
and this year his subject is Aisle Sixteen.
The young politician - no stranger to spin
a neat line in sound bites and translucent skin
he turned to the press with an odious grin
and said: my dear people where do I begin?
We’ve done all we can, took advice from a specialist team.
Our policy has been approved by the Queen -
we’re outsourcing Britain to Aisle Sixteen.
Joel Stickley and I paired up with animator Jon Dunleavy to write this short film. It’s now been shortlisted (from around 1300) for a Cannes Film Fest comp run by Canadian Film Board and Youtube.
Go here to vote for it. To vote, simply press the ‘like’ button. You can do this once a day, why not keep coming back?
I was back on Saturday Live this week. I’m normally there every 6 weeks or so but Kate Fox was trapped out in Spain due to the volcanic ash cloud so they asked me to fill in.
I think it was my favourite of all the shows I’ve done over the past two years. The studio guest was Alvin Stardust, who is a delightful fellow. He was a perfect guest, full of warm, witty anecdotes. The featured interview was also a cracker. I wrote my longer poem about one of the short features, a “guerilla” report about Gang Shows, am dram productions put on by the Scouts. As Saturday Live poems go, it’s one of favourite ones.
Volacanic Ash Triolet
I’m owed some compensation
now there’s no more ash.
It ruined my vacation.
I’m owed some compensation.
Imagine my frustration
so now I want some cash.
I’m owed some compensation
I think I’ll sue the ash.
All The World’s A Scout Hut …
Meet the gang cos the boys are here
young entertainment engineers
toggle up to the end of the pier.
Cheer. It’s the Gang Show.
From Basingstoke to Hull and back
swap neckerchiefs for silk cravats
get glitter on your campaign hat.
Clap! It’s the Gang Show.
Sketches, skits and ukuleles
am dram vignettes, songs and caleighs -
Bums on seats for a good turn daily.
Hail thee! It’s the Gang Show.
From singer’s lungs and playwright’s nibs
comes cabaret so gay and glib
half Isherwood half dib dib dib.
Ad-lib. It’s the Gang Show.
Making fires then playing the spoons
on Gilbert and Sullivan afternoons.
Who says Woodcraft have all the best tunes?
Swoon. It’s the Gang Show.
There’s silver on the scarlet scarf.
There’s magic in a theatre mask.
There’s beauty in a young man’s laugh.
Bask in the Gang Show.
Across the world these fresh faced teens
do duty to their God and Queen.
Be prepared and keep it clean.
Supreme. It’s the Gang Show
On Saturday I got to go up to the top floor of Broadcasting House and film my Saturday Live poems. Like with Saturday Live itself this is not be at my best. I wrote the poems the day before, I hadn’t learned them and it was 10am. But here you go …
What a great weekend. Manchester Albert Club gig was immense, many thanks to those who came down.
On Saturday I did my regular bit on Saturday Live. Here are my poems. The first is fairly self-explanatory. The second was in response to a story we did. You can read more on it here. That said, it doesn’t directly reflect that story, it’s more about politicians in general. Or one side of them, at least.
Poem for Malcolm McLaren
Composer of scandal.
Conductor of rage.
The Wicked Embezzler of rock’s filthy age.
A suave tabloid Prospero played against type
made hype out of art
and then art out of hype.
If you’ve got ideas then you’ve no need for friends.
And what matter’s death when you’ve ruled the World’s End?
I’m one of your kids, Malcolm, saying goodbye.
Too fast too live, yes,
but too young to die.
The Politician
Do this for me and I’ll look after you
It will get worse before we have our day
Think only of the greater good you’ll do
I need your help if I’m to make it new
Please keep the faith despite the things I say
do this for me and I’ll look after you.
A thousand tiny lies can make a truth
So learn to turn a cheek and look away
Think only of the greater good you’ll do
I promise I will fight the privileged few
But first I need assurance that you’ll stay
Do this for me and I’ll look after you.
You must discard all other points of view
Their purpose is to lead you all astray
Think only of the greater good you’ll do
So cross the box our time is overdue.
Yes, cross the box or you will have to pay.
Do this for me and I’ll look after you
Think only of the greater good you’ll do.
George Szirtes, the multi-award winning poet and translator, has given my book - High Performance - a really nice review on the blog-zine Ink, Sweat and Tears. You can read it here. You can buy the book here.
I’ve been reviewed by The Argus, Brighton’s main local paper, about 4 times and this is first time I’ve wanted to share one with you. Last year’s review began: “If the hype is to be believed then Luke Wright is performance poetry’s great white hope.” Talk about starting with an agenda. Anyway, this year’s was very nice. You can read it here.
I was honoured (yes, HONOURED) to be be invited by the mighty Mercy to contribute to their e-zine - Now I’m Talking Here. Each issue is based on a character from 12 Angry Men, which, if you haven’t seen it, is an immensely powerful and wonderfully acted film. The issue I’m in is based on the character McCardle. My brief was to write a poem that reflected in some way the things McCardle represents in 12 Angry Men, defined by Mercy as: “Old age, resurgence of life, fair-mindedness.”
My poem was illustrated by Erica Read. I really like her illustration. Here it is, along with my words. I think this poem will feature in my new show Cynical Ballads.
So here’s a thing: a grim suburban street
that’s tutted at by Daily Mail moaners
the kind you find where towns and ring roads meet
the kind where pitbulls look just like their owners
and leave upon the pavements greasy turds
a place devoid of Priuses and flannels
There lives a man who once fought like a bird
while in a Spitfire, high above the Channel.
Who spends his days between his house and town
his quiet self-awareness half estranged
pointing at buildings, muttering with a frown: That’s changed, that’s changed, that’s changed, that’s changed, that’s changed.
Flight lieutenant Stanley David Woods
who lately had felt something was amiss
who liked the black and white of bad and good
who’s silent mantra went something like this:
I’ll stand up to my enemy
No matter what he throws at me
I’ll fight until I cannot stand.
And though I pray the victor’s me
I hope I have the strength I need
To meet the sod and shake his hand.
Until one bleak and stormy winter’s evening
old Stan was lying restless slightly hoarse
(just shy of snores but more than heavy breathing)
when he heard his back door being forced.
Lurching out of bed he grabbed a coal scuttle
down his staircase screaming bloody death
the burglars scarpered after some kafuffle
as Stan lay on the floor grasping for breath.
And soon the neighbours came and made a fuss
they picked him up and help him clear the mess
they said: The dibs don’t help out folk like us.
Here Stan, what you should do is phone the press.
The locals then the nationals came like mugs Valiant Spitfire Veteran Left For Dead Britain is awash with Nasty Thugs!
But Stanley David Woods just quietly said:
I’ll stand up to my enemy
No matter what he throws at me
I’ll fight until I cannot stand.
And though I pray the victor’s me
I hope I have the strength I need
To meet the sod and shake his hand.
The tabloid papers seized on Stanley’s song Such bloody minded, bloody British Gusto
makes you proud to know that you belong
to Cricket! Red Phone boxes! Beef and Bisto!
The middle England rags all set their stands.
In ninety point Helvetica declared: Step forward, say you’re sorry, shake his hand
and we’ll forgive you everything, we swear.
And soon the whole of Britain was behind them Face up to what you’ve done they said in polls.
Groups of burly men set out to find them
eventually detectives got involved.
Meanwhile the nation turned its head to Stan,
his private mantra publicly enshrined -
school teachers worked it into lesson plans
their interactive white boards bore these lines:
I’ll stand up to my enemy
No matter what he throws at me
I’ll fight until I cannot stand.
And though I pray the victor’s me
I hope I have the strength I need
To meet the sod and shake his hand.
Eventually the cops won through with science:
a clue outside left where the burglars lurked.
It turns out one had dropped his drivers licence
it’s hardly CSI but still it worked.
An open/shut conviction promptly happened
then Stan was wheeled out to do the deed I’m sorry said the burglar to much clapping I forgive you lad, now go home free.
The assembled press and public burst out laughing -
You must be kidding Stanley he’s a crook
We’ve glad he’s sorry but he still needs gassing
step aside so we can throw the book!
The circus over, Stanley went home sapped
though hopeful even when he lost his health
that every now and then an angry chap
might whisper that old mantra to himself:
I’ll stand up to my enemy
No matter what he throws at me
I’ll fight until I cannot stand.
And though I pray the victor’s me
I hope I have the strength I need
To meet the sod and shake his hand.
I had my first sticky moment on Saturday Live today. My first poem was rejected with 15 minutes to go before the start of the programme. They’d get sued apparently. And reading back over my poem, I think they’re right:
Five Million
Five million for The Journey
Five million for my stories
Five million for the strategies
That stupefied the Tories.
Five million for D:ream
Five million for the hate
Five million for Iraq
Now, let me get this straight
Five million for the TBGBS
Five million for my zeal
Five million for the Granita
Five million for the deal
Five million for that photograph
So dead behind the eyes
Five million for my memories
Five million for my lies.
So I quickly penned a little tribute Michael Foot instead. Not sure where it is though, so I can’t post it here.
Later, my second effort seemed to go down well
Three Children
At eighteen they were granted liberty
Their names and faces strictly classified
Released into the world but never free
Presented with a new identity
The documents and memories supplied
At eighteen they were granted liberty
But late at night the past won’t let them be
Playing truant under slate grey skies
Released into the world but never free
Though they can walk about like you and me
Blend in on buses wearing suits and ties
At eighteen they were granted liberty
And slipped back into Britain quietly
Haunted by a deadly lullaby
Released into the world but never free
Immortalised in grey CCTV
They led a little boy away to die
At eighteen they were granted liberty
Released into the world but never free.
I’m in Cranbrook, a quaint little Kent town a few miles south of Royal Tunbridge Wells. I performed Petty Concerns on Tuesday night to a lovely crowd of about 50 people and yesterday I worked with students from the local Grammar school to prepare for a poetry slam, which is being held this morning at the same venue I did my show.
Cranbrook school is unusual in that it is a state grammar school. It feels like a public school, with excellent facilities, nestled in a pretty little country town with its independent businesses and pubs. The girls wonder around in long skirts and are called Floss and Milly and the boys have shaggy mop tops and answer to names like Finn and Rupert. The school also melds into the town the way a public school does, as teenagers cross roads in their hoards to get to hockey and rugby pitches.
I’m staying at a B&B that is effectively just someone’s house. I feel a bit like her teenage son, sulking in his bedroom and heading off to school each morning across the field at the back of the house, but its strangely comforting. When I arrived I was feeling very sad, the combination of leaving my wife and son and having listened to six This American Lifes in the car had left me downbeat and dangerously pensive, but I feel alright now. Cranbrook, it seems, is good for soul.
After the slam today I’m heading straight to Bath for a Petty Concerns gig at The Rondo. My mates Byron Vincent and Nathan Filer are coming down and afterwards I’m heading back to Bristol with them to stay with Byron, which’ll be great. Nasty Little Press are publishing Byron’s debut collection in May, so there’s plenty of shop to talk about.
After Bath it’s London to Saturday Live and then Brighton to round my week off. I then have two days at home with my son before heading up north for two gigs and a workshop. Onwards!
Fifty of the Square & Compasses’ locals crammed into a small room with an open fire (perhaps unnecessary) and the best atmosphere I’ve experienced at a gig since the late night Aisle16 at Port Eliot a few years back. It was just superb.
I’ve been buzzing all weekend. That’s what a gig should be like. Atmosphere in nine-tenths of the law. What so many audiences don’t realise (and I exclude all of my audiences from last week in this) is that if you don’t give, you don’t get. Live performance is not the telly. You have to clap; you have to cheer; come on try your best to laugh. Fuck it, why not smile every now and again. Obviously, if you hate it don’t, but I’ve had people sit stony faced through my show and come up to me at the end and say “that was amazing mate, how much for a cd? Fiver? Fuck it, I’ll have two.” No exaggeration. Poetry audiences, a plea - be more like the crowd down the Square & Compass. It’s supposed to be fun.
I’m back home at my mum and dad’s house. I was hoping for a lie-in to make up for yesterday’s insomnia but no such luck. I’ve been up since seven. Tonight I’m off to Wareham in Dorset to do a gig with Elvis McGonagall at his sporadically run Blue Suede Sporran Club. Elvis and I have been trying to get this gig together for ages, but there’s always been some reason I can’t make the journey, so when we offer me this one I jumped at the chance. I doesn’t matter that it makes my journey this week has been Norwich-Kelevdeon, Kelevedon-London, London-Aberystwyth, Aberystwyth-London, London-Wivenhoe, Wivenhoe-Coggeshall, Coggeshall-Kelvedon, Kelevdeon-London, London-Wareham, Wareham-London, London-Kelvedon, Kelvdeon-Coggeshall, Coggeshall-Norwich. That’s fine, right. Actually, I really don’t mind, travelling agrees with me, especially if it’s on the train (though not on those fucking Pendolino trains, they can fuck off).
So the Sporran should be grand, but last night will take some beating. I had such a warm, friendly audience at Poetry Wivenhoe. A real poetry crowd: there were two villanelles in the open mic! I did a mix of stuff in the first half and then my ballads set in the second half. The Ballad of Barlow Burton was particularly scary last night. I’m so excited about Cynical Ballads. I have a couple more pieces to write, but it’s really taking shape. The plans we have to illustrate the show are very big too. It’s going to be great.
A bout of insomnia finds me here at 5.30am writing a blog in the light of my laptop screen. This room is too hot, my nose is too blocked and it’s becoming increasing apparent that these decongestion tablets have caffeine in them.
I’m in Aberystwyth. It’s my first time here. I’ve always wanted to go. I nearly went to university in Bangor, which has a similar end of the line romanticism to it. Somewhere out there in a parallel universe there is a Luke Wright that went Bangor. Maybe it’s a bit like Lost and all the people in my current life are also in bangor life but in different roles, and maybe my kid’s really good at playing Chopin? Whatever, anywhere that takes three hours to get to on a rickety train that goes past stations that are just platforms surrounded by mountains is worth visiting in my book.
I say three hours, that’s three hours from Birmingham, I’d been on the go since half six when when my train left Birmingham International at 12.09. Not that I really mind. If this was my final tour date it would feel more of a slog but it’s the first one and I’m keen for adventure. Don’t scoff, Aberystwyth might not seem like adventure compared to trekking in Nepal or wanking off a lady boy in an orphanage you helped build (or whatever you kids do on your gap years), but it is to me. I guess I should have cultivated a nonchalance for it all by now but when I pulled into Aberystwyth station I couldn’t help but feel amazed that here I was in another country (well, principality) looking at the sea on the West coast of Britain when it seemed that only minutes before I’d been a short drive from from the East coast. It helps if you can get lost in a good book, anyone who’s read Stone Junction by Jim Dodge will know what I mean.
I had tea at the hotel and marveled at the sea view from the large bay windows in my room. I was more taken by its roar then than I am now, at 5.48am having had it permeate my half sleep all night, but a night by the sea is good for the soul (and I can sleep on the train).
I had been warned of the hill up to the university, but “hill” means a different thing to a boy from home counties than it does to a Welshman. Sweating through my waistcoat and increasingly irritated at the music on my iPod I reached the arts centre (which is on the university campus) at about five-ish. “An arts centre on a university campus,” I thought to myself, “what a splendid idea, a captive audience then.” Ha, not so as it seems. The tech informed me that I had 15 pre-sales for the show.
“Do you get much of a walk-up?” I asked.
He and the front of house manager looked at me like I’d just walked into a pool hall asking for game of chequers.* ”No.”
My cold had caught up with me. The long sweaty walk combined with the prospect of an awkward evening in front of a tiny crowd whacked me round the head. I went through a few bits of script and found them impossibly tiring to perform. I glumly went outside to the foyer to drink tea and throw myself into Stone Junction for a couple of hours.
If I can give you one bit of advice about being a performance poet, it’s warm up properly. I was taught the importance of this by my first director James Grieve when I did my first solo show in 2006. I haven’t always followed it since, but I’ve been really good about getting myself in shape for Petty Concerns. I spent 40 minutes stretching and doing pronunciation exercises and warm up poems before the gig. Not only does it limber you up but it gets you in your performance zone whilst burning off the nervous energy, which otherwise I find quite irritating until I’m just about to walk on stage. My warm up last night saved the gig. By the time I got on stage I was fluid enough to carry each audience member with me. I made a few cracks about the size of the crowd (which had at least broken the 20 barrier) and after about three minutes I knew they were with me.
I think its a testament to the show that I enjoy performing it so much. I don’t remember enjoying my previous shows as consistently as this one. I had a lovely time on stage. After a few weeks off from it, concentrating on finishing Cynical Ballads, it was grand to crank up my bleeding heart and bang on about ego.
After the gig I sold a few books and was asked by a big group of audience members if I’d join them for a drink. The drink turned out to be two and we had a delightful time talking about comedy, kids and the end of the line. They asked me which I preferred - touring or a static run. What’s clear is that it’s stuff like being asked to join a group of strangers for a drink that makes touring so special. I had a wonderful time last night and came back to my hotel buoyed and excited by the prospect of the next gig and the next little corner of Britain it will help me uncover. Poetry Wivenhoe today, I’m excited.
* ha, this line is lifted from one of Tom Sutton’s excellent “nuisance letters,” couldn’t resist it.
