Following some light-hearted riffing, Anna Freeman kicked off May’s Blahblahblah with an interesting new piece that deconstructed the craft, the performance and the audience's reception of poetry.
Recorded at the Royal College of Nursing's Congress 2013, Molly Case's great spoken-word piece 'Nursing the Nation' received a standing ovation and clocked up over 300,000 views online shortly after, as it's pro-NHS message spread around the internet like wildfire.
Wise, poetic words from the late Dr Maya Angelou.
Summer officially landed this week and the doors of The Cube were flung wide-open to welcome in devotees of Bristol's leading literature night 'Kill Your Darlings', and to allow them to spill out freely onto the courtyard for some alfresco drinking. It was apt that to coincide with the arrival of the hottest season, this month’s event sported the raunchy theme of 'Sex', and appropriate that novelist Ned Beauman (no stranger to the written sex scene), was the headline act.
Exploring society's ever-growing, anti-social obsession with technology, Gary Turk presents 'Look Up'. Striking a resonant chord internationally, this video became a viral sensation that generated widespread acclaim whilst rapidly achieving over 35 million views!
Packed close to the brim following the barnstorming double-act of Femi Martin and Dizraeli last month, Anna Freeman commenced this latest edition of Blahblahblah with her usual mix of enjoyably awkward comedy.
The official video for 'The Beigeness', the first single from Kate Tempest's new solo album 'Everybody Down'. Nice.
Another exquisite portion of Kill Your Darlings was served up to the lit-loving Bristol masses at the Cube Cinema in this latest outing. Met with great anticipation, the event welcomed new 'darling', writer and poet Chimene Suleymen, whilst the superb Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine, took the role of headliner. The nominated theme for performances this month was 'Wasted'.
With this recent video, titled 'Dear Mr Gove', Jess Green demonstrated the combined power of impassioned poetry and the internet to create a word-of-mouth buzz. Viewed over 200,000 times and having been mentioned by major media outlets both online and in print, this proved to be another topical example of spoken-word reaching the mainstream.
Martin Goodman captured some great images recently at Cam-Unity, an exciting new lyrically-driven night in Cambridge. Headlined by veteran wordsmith Dizraeli (performing with turntable-master DJ Downlow), the crowd also enjoyed appearances on the mic from Little Rizla and Kimberley Newell.
Cam-Unity: Official Website / Official Facebook
Martin Goodman Photography: Official Website / Official Facebook