(seen at the performance on 8th April 2022)
It is too easy, when writing about live performance, to get into a rut. There are vast numbers of shows – mostly West End musicals and “star casting” plays that the monkey feels compelled to see. Then there are rare fringe events – revivals of shows not likely to be seen in larger theatres again. Then most other West End productions, one-off concerts, shows with friends in, and so on.
The diary fills with the same genres and it all gets a little stale. So, in the first part of a two-part single Weekend challenge the monkey decided to explore two genres it never normally encounters. This is the first.
For those who watch “Countdown” and other TV comedy panel shows on the fourth channel, Cooper Clarke will be a familiar gravelly-voiced, straggly long-haired man in the corner with a hilariously biting line in fast-spoken poetry. Having seen him in those short segments, the monkey booked for a live show. Two postponements later, it happened.
Before the man himself ventured onto the stage, almost an hour of supporting poetry proved the power of the written and spoken word in rhythm. Simon Dyas in his character of Geoffrey Allerton rather lost the crowd with an overly aggressive and unfunny welcome, before Tenby-based poet Clare Ferguson-Walker took to the stage.
Apparently, before the show took place there was a competition for a poet to win the opportunity to read their poem here on the night. Sadly, the winner, Jen Clarke (no relation) couldn’t attend, so Ferguson-Walker treated us to Clarke’s bitter-sweet relationship saga with a strong observational ending.
Moving on to her own poems, the life of a single mother in lockdown and some self-deprecating remarks made her journey to London on National Express more than worthwhile. Her children are at the centre of her life, words are how she can bond with them – her daughter’s profound comment about teenage womanhood a proof of that.
Mike Garry, a Manchester poet followed. His "Signify: a poem for Miss McCoombe, my old primary school teacher" is one every wordsmith – monkey included – knows, recognises and wishes could be shared with our own teachers to whom we owe our skills now. Some familiar place names in his home city checked too, a poet with northern soul.
Last and youngest (he still gets I.D.’d at the Co-Op aged 40 with his kids) Luke Wright was once Cooper Clarke’s driver. A poem about Clarke’s footwear choices caught the man’s attention, and Wright’s own work is accessible yet an intellectual challenge. Using Oulipo – a discipline where some constraint is placed on writing produced an hilarious Bolton / London visit where the only vowel permitted was the letter “O”. Ingenious.
The main event had Dr Cooper Clarke open with the truth that nobody takes care of a hire car, and the loss of the security deposit is no biggie against the cost of ownership.
Just over an hour of (mostly) hoary but hilarious jokes and his own poems followed. The best of the former being the sharp observation that Jesus was Jewish... yet has a Spanish name... The best of the latter a longer poem admitting that “I’ve Fallen In Love With My Wife”.
A false exit tricked a pretentious young couple on the front row into missing 20 minutes of the show to avoid the always tedious leaving-crowd-wait in the aisles. For the rest of us, his gratitude to his team and musings that laws are made to prevent things we actually want to do rather than things we don’t ended the evening on an anarchic but truthful note.
Frankly, not really a long enough appearance by the star to justify the ticket price; but given his difficulties quite often reading his own work from the page the monkey realised that his health had to be the main consideration.
Less excusable was the sound during the pre-show and interval as Cooper Clarke’s presumably witty recorded DJ-ing of his choices was totally lost in the amplification - along with much of the music itself.
The constant pushing by every poet of their books (and £250, yes, really – for a tiny model of JCC) in the foyer also grew tiresome. They are being paid to appear, and tickets for the show were expensive enough without pressuring the audience to shell out another £10 or so per poet. Imagine if every West End performer did likewise... “Let It Go, Let It Go – but not my new CD on sale in the gift shop now”...
Live poetry reading turns out to be exciting, but there’s little wonder it is a niche confined usually to pub rooms and university lecture halls. The presentation level here simply didn’t justify the venue for this monkey. Though it enjoyed very much the work and individual performances, it did feel the lack of professional showmanship made for an unpolished and rather slight, if enjoyable, evening.
3 stars.