- reviewed by James Webster – Shame is a highly ambitious and well-realised multi-disciplinary show. Created by John Berkavitch, this genre-bending show blends theatre, spoken word, hip hop, physical theatre, music and animation into a dizzying and highly accomplished performance. It begins with Berkavitch asking the audience the question ‘what are you most ashamed of’,…
- reviewed by James Webster – Richard Marsh‘s two-man poetry play is a marvel of wit and emotion. Like all good comedies, the gags flow thick and fast, rich with wit and dexterous wordplay. What makes it a great comedy is that the jokes are rooted in deep and powerful emotion, as Marsh twines together…
-Reviewed by Zara Raab- Named by The Asian Review of Books as one of the top women poets writing in China, Yu Xiang rarely makes historical or geographical references in I Can Almost See the Clouds of Dust. She begins her second full-length book––her first was Exhale (2006)–– with ‘My House’, where she issues not…
-Reviewed by James Webster- The thrum of deep base sound ebbs away, leaving only a ring of tinnitus. The lights retreat to a dim glimmer, the shivers stop running down my spine, and the audience audibly exhale. We’re about two thirds of the way through Melanie Wilson‘s haunting multimedia poem, and she’s holding us on…
- Reviewed by Lettie McKie – Why you should celebrate Sage and Time … Three years ago I wrote a review (here) of the first time I ever when to London performance poetry event Sage and Time at the Charterhouse Bar next to Smithfield market. Masters of the warm welcome hosts Amy Acre and Anna…
-Reviewed by Afric McGlinchey- After the premature death of a lover, it would be easy to succumb to a tidal wave of bitterness and anguish. But, unlike Auden’s famous ‘Funeral Blues’ poem, where, in a rapture of grief, he exhorts the world to ‘stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone’, Moore is more…
-Reviewed by Jenna Clake- What is most striking about Stewart’s Toebirds and Woodlice is its difference to her other pamphlet, Metamorphosis of Woman. Granted, the strong, honest personae are still there, but this time, Stewart is concerned with the mind. The pamphlet opens with ‘Ode to Childhood Dreams’, in which the persona is created through dialect:…
- event background by Jo Colley, review by Rosi Thornton- Event organiser, Jo Colley, explains how the event came to be: The idea for an event celebrating the life and work of Frida Kahlo began to take shape one evening in the bar of the Voodoo Café in Darlington, over a couple of Mojitos with…
-Reviewed by Charlotte Barnes- Time, a relatively new publication from Lazy Gramophone Press, is a unique and endearing collection of prose and poems that have been perfectly paired with complementary artwork. This outstanding collection has successfully drawn together different forms of art, marrying talent in literature and drawing, painting and photography, in order to compile…
-Reviewed by Rory O’Sullivan- Here’s an idea: invite some of your colleagues in the writing scene to submit individual pieces of short fiction, novel excerpts, verse, screenplay and other literary minutiae – all of which must honour a pre-determined theme – collate them, shuffle them into a polished sequence, then sit back and watch your…