Springing back into action for 2015, Bristol's recurring spoken-word event 'Word of Mouth' hosted the regional leg of the increasingly popular touring concept 'The Anti-Slam'.
Hosted by Dan Simpson and Anna Freeman, the evening challenged a collection of performers to do their very worst, with an arbitrary selection of prizes awarded to the person scoring lower than their competitors.
Flipping the nature of a traditional poetry slam on its head, the premise allowed for a wealth of outlandish and deliberately dubious wordplay to unfold from the performer's exaggerated alter-egos. Whether the low-budget 'gangsta' rappers, face-smoothing revolutionaries or patchy political commentators that entertained the room, the evening proved commendably abysmal. A trio of larger-than-life on-stage judges provided wise-cracking feedback after each piece, which added many further highlights and glued the shambling wordplay together structurally over the course of the evening.
Concluding amongst hearty rounds of laughter, Bristol's Anti-Slam proved an unusual but innovative idea from which to create an evening's entertainment and a strong start to Word of Mouth's 2015 programming.