Preview: Great Northern Slam at Newcastle Northern Stage

Great Northern Slam

Newcastle Northern Stage

Wednesday 8th April

The Great North Slam comes to Northern Stage. It's performance poetry meets XFactor. Ten of the best slam poets in the North have 3 minutes each to wow the audience with words and delivery and then judges randomly selected from the audience vote and in each round we eliminate poets until only two are left to battle it out for the prize, pride and the glory of becoming Great Northern Slam Champion and the BIG MONEY Prize of £50.00.

Would you like to take part in the Great Northern Slam? Email jeffprice@radikalwords.com for more info.

There will also be a special guest  stand up poet Spoz (AKA Giovanni Esposito).  He's a festival favourite and has headlined at Glastonbury, Shambala, Cheltenham Literature festival and Ledbury Poetry Festival. Spoz has also been Birmingham's Poet Laureate.

In addition Zach Lewis was one of the winners of SLAMalgamate and the Radikal Words team are thrilled he is going to do a guest spot at the Slam. Zack has been writing poems for a decade and saying them at people since 2011.He has performed at the Nottingham Playhouse, The Olympic Park and the Sage Gateshead and has been praised for his ‘dramatic powers of urban storytelling.’ He was one of the BBC’s New Voices in 2014.

Tickets:

Northern Stage Wednesday 8th April  7.30

Tickets £5

http://www.northernstage.co.uk/whats-on/great-north-slam

Box Office: 0191 230 5151

Preview: The Price Of Happiness at Newcastle Live Theatre

The Price Of Happiness

NewcastleLive Theatre

Tuesday 17th March

What's the cost of feeling you have to want the same things as everybody else?

Is it every little girl’s dream to be walked down the aisle feeling like a Disney princess, looking like she’s been swallowed by taffeta? What if you're more Light Water Valley lass than Disney Princess? And are we all wired to be baby-making machines? Would we all be good parents? What if your children got your eczema, your husband’s beard, but was a girl?

Kate Fox is a comedian and poet. She never wanted a big white wedding and got married in a lighthouse in a day that cost about £1000 in total. She's never wanted children either, rather spending her hard earned cash in Mango over Mothercare. The average cost of a wedding now is 24 thousand pounds, and a child a whopping 222 thousand.

What else could she spend that money on - (two thirds of a degree, a round the world trip or a waxwork of Tom Cruise?) Would she want to? Was it going to Girl Guides as a child that has put her off. Is there really such a thing as a maternal or paternal instinct and is there such a thing as the perfect formula for marriage or is it a tradition as outdated as Morris Dancing with only slightly fewer hankies and bells?

In this brand new series for BBC Radio 4, Kate explores some of the things that she definitely does not want to have from the viewpoint of someone who cheerfully fails to meet most of them in many respects, but are things she feels society is constantly reminding her she should. She asks her audience to help her decide whether A Big White Wedding and Babies are things she should actually want.

Tickets:

There will be a recording made at The Live Theatre in Newcastle on Tuesday 17th March at 8pm.

Tickets are totally FREE but must be booked and can be reserved here: http://www.live.org.uk/whats-on-book/kate-fox-the-price-of-happiness

Review: Radikal Words at Newcastle Northern Stage

Writer’s Paradise

Radikal Words

Newcastle Northern Stage

12^th November 2014.

Twice a year Stage 3 of Northern Stage is home to the eclectic spoken word event that is Radikal Words. An evening made up of a mixture of passionate poetry with soothing musical interludes.

During the first spoken word set host Jeff Price waxed lyrically about the issues of age and relationships. Highlights included losing your daughter temporally as she heads off to her first festival and Saga Louts, about how the older folk misbehave. Jeff’s 20 years of experience came across as he entertained the appreciative audience.

Teeside’s Jo Colley loves her rabbits, and not just because they eat their own poo. Hungry was one of 2 poems to elaborate on the furry creatures. Jo also highlighted how careers advice for girls has changed and the suggestion that the pinnacle of a girls ambition might once have been an air hostess.

James McKay increased the pace with shorter pieces like Piccadilly, reflecting upon his experiences of living in London. 300 000 was an extended piece about the chaos of Radio 1’s Love Parade in Leeds as ten times more people turned up than expected. Mixing up the shorter and longer work kept the pace up.

Acoustic music from Ditte Elly started both halves in her third appearance at Radikal Words. Ditte was finger picking her way through numbers on diverse topics from North Sea shipwrecks to winter via her feelings about her brother.

Northern Stages’ own Vinny Boy McHugh clearly loves writing poetry and he articulated the experiences of a young man living in Tyneside who is acutely aware of the history of the region. It is refreshing to hear the writings of a happy poet. His reflection of society’s woes was strongly pulled into focus with the brilliant Bankers.

The show finished with a performer who blast though like a fast moving steam train. Through strong personal experiences working with young people Joelle Taylor passionately presented the issues of self-respect and self-esteem of a troubled generation. Poetry about the young carers on the Isle of Skye and the harsh nature of coming of age on the council estates are presented without judgement or prejudice.  Joelle ensured that the evening finished with an energetic conclusion.

Poetry should be presented live and the evening’s performances, and the fabulous word craft, were a joy to behold. 

This review was written by Stephen Oliver for Jowheretogo PR (www.jowheretogo.com). Follow Jo on twitter @jowheretogo, Stephen @panic_c_button or like Jowheretogo on Facebook www.facebook.com/Jowheretogo

Preview: Radikal Words at Northern Stage

Radikal Words @ Northern Stage

Featuring:

Joelle Taylor and James McKay

Jo Colley

Jeff Price

Vinny Boy McHugh

Music from the amazing

Ditte Elly 

Another jam-packed night of spoken word with headliner Joelle Taylor, former UK slam champion, playwright, novelist and Poet in Residence at the Leonardo Da Vinci exhibition in Buckingham Palace last year. James McKay performs his own published verse and recitation classics usually heard in warehouse parties and medieval churches. Other acts include Jo Colley and Vinny Boy. Music comes from the wonderful Ditte Elly.

Joelle Taylor is a spoken word artist, slam poet, playwright, novelist and cultural terrorist. She has performed across the UK as well as internationally for the British Council (Zimbabwe, Botswana) taking in a diverse range of venues from Dingwalls, the 100 Club, the 02 Arena, the Royal Festival Hall and Ronnie Scott’s to the Royal Court, the Globe, the ICA, Buckingham Palace and both Pentonville and Holloway prisons. She is a UK Slam Champion

James McKay is welcomed back to Newcastle. James started writing and performing in his late 20s and was one of the founders of Homecooking an exciting open-mic cabaret night that started out in someones living room and still pops up in unusual venues across the North. James traces his roots back to a "classical beatnik" aesthetic nutured in his student days studying the classics by day and Ginsberg and Frelinghetti by night. James brought performance poetry with a new look at classical poetry to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2012. 

Jowheretogo reviewed the April show: http://nomorepanicbutton.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/review-radikal-words-at-newcastles.html

Tickets:

Wednesday 12th November 7.30pm

Tickets £8:50

Book online: www.northernstage.co.uk/whats-on/radikal-words

Box office: 0191 230 5151