Battersea Arts Centre, Studio 1
4/2/05, 9pm
Check out www.applesandsnakes.org for more of their events
Rating 3/5
A mainly for-laughs event, it was billed as a baby friendly night, though was really just for the parents; poems about parenting to parents from parents, as opposed to poems for the kids… if you see what I mean. Which was fair enough.
Four performers giving a mix of comic tales of fatherhood and friends-in-the-audience in jokes, though there were some stand-out stuff.
Compere – Carl Dhiman. From the Poetry Society and host of the Poetry Café’s Unplugged Tuesday nights. A good, solid compere, only slightly teetering on the too many poems from himself. A little unenthusiastic and unprepared for my tastes, but hey.
Urbanspirit. Really nice guy, beautiful baby, but not a memorable performance that night. I feel he could have been a lot better on a different subject matter; it was all too lovely and fluffy and rainbows…
Charlie Dark. Very confident with great audience participation skills, if a little showy. Again, not a memorable slot, but, as with Urbanspirit, I’d look out for him. The two of them seemed to feel it was a night to ease up and be cuddly and effeminate about it all…
Note about Charlie: for some reason he thinks that two double page rants constitutes one short poem to end a set with, when he’s told one more. That really pisses me off when performers don’t respect the organiser, audience or the other performers enough not to emotionally blackmail another poem or two. I’ve done it once (albeit drunk) and felt really bad about it. Just don’t.
Darwood. Surprise hit for me. After a rather odd beginning, where he walked on, then off, then on again, he did a quick reality check for ‘Spirit and Dark and came on with a heavy blues style ‘life is shit’ set.
Mixing personal tales in the form of a verse letter with snippets of how fucked up relationships can get when they break down and there are kids involved, Darwood just had that realist edge to his work. Consider it cheap or not, on the night it worked and it stood him out from the crowd.
Last up - Mat Harvey. Excellent; though perhaps a little dry for some. His intelligent word play is the key to his likeability, and accessibility, on stage, with every joke relying on the language used as opposed to literary references or cheap gags. 'Mostly Dreams' (not the title, but main refrain) was a stand out poem (as well as an archetypal Harvey-writing) and you come away just thinking what a cool guy by the end of it. His down to earth attitude to writing (his response to being asked to write a poem about IT is 'wankers' - though he still gets out a great performance piece), and willingness to poke fun at himself makes sure he's the one that you remember.
Ultimately, another worthwhile poetry evening from A&S. Moving to the studio does feel a little too formal compared to the café, but it also makes it more of an event. The pros of better acoustics, lighting and performance space in my opinion outweigh the cons of the café
Reviewed by Candace Orchard