Tuesday 27th October 09 - Write To Speak Featuring Kate Tempest and Matt Panesh at Hull Truck By Michelle Dee

Just had to write something about Tuesday's Write To Speak at Hull Truck Theatre. The regular event showcases the best poetry and spoken word from around the country. Tonight we have the incredible vocal dexterity of Kate Tempest (London) and the poems, ponderings and profane humour of Matt Panesh (Manchester) on his Welcome to the U.K. tour. The shows are hosted by the plain-speaking Joe Hakim and his partner in rhyme the irrepressible Mike Watts.

The two open the show with a few poems each to warm the crowd up; get them in the mood, dispelling a few poetry myths on the way. I remember thinking, as this is the first performance I've seen from Joe and Mike for a while, how fresh it all sounded. They always bring something new to the show and tonight was no exception.

With a quip about the lack of good material to be gained from writing about door staff, they deliver an animated poetic skit illustrating a typical Friday night's discourse between oppressive bouncer and disgruntled punter. The piece is well received by a seventy-strong audience.

Kate Tempest, a young woman of eighteen, in baggy jeans, sneakers with mic in hand dominates the stage. Her opening piece bridges seamlessly from spoken word into fast flowing MCing. She puts all those non-believers, all those who may have doubted her ability to write, perform and rap like a pro at such a young age, firmly in their place. Just because the guys might have the right threads doesn't mean they can cut it on the mic.

Describing herself as an ancient scribe she delivers well crafted lines with a street twang finding a new way to represent a broken down society

The world she inhabits is peopled by knife wielding kids, wannabe celebrities, emotional concepts that echo, reflect and imitate what passes for the respectable classes these days. Rather than just a litany about crime-laden suburbs she looks for answers, asking the audience to compare the urban tales of warring factions to the turbulence of current affairs. Rather than condemn the hoodie outright she suggests they need something more positive.

She shows a literary awareness that belies her age when referring to latch-key children in Cannibal Kids, and a fluent ability to shift gear and up the tempo adding yet more to the audience experience. She is wickedly awesome, to coin a phrase, and to coin another - if you missed it, you missed out.

Matt Panesh set his stall out early on - or rather his wardrobe - and filled it with poems that reflected everyday experience. There was one about race, one about redundancy, another about a corpse in a forgotten flat for over a year in Manchester. After ten minutes you felt you had the measure of him, you knew what he was about; clever observations about societies' incongruities; unjustness and the historical absurdity of our patriotic claims.

Each poem is introduced with a bit of stand-up style patter and delivered with a likeable charm. He's witty, learned and just a bit cock-sure. The latter, is more fitting than you might think, as the second half of his show throws out the carefully constructed wardrobe and gets bluer than a Blue Tit in the first snows of winter. He describes early sexual miss-adventures with gusto, much animated gesturing and increasingly toe-curling language. When he enquired whether anyone in the audience had ever been fisted, my early ideas about him were abandoned and as the stand-up routines became longer and the poetry more scarce, I was of the opinion that the poetry had become something of a poor second.

That's not to say when he did break into verse he disappointed, Art For Fuck's Sake, recalling the extravagance of the British Art explosion resulted in gales of laughter and applause. More warm applause was forthcoming when he switched it around and delivered more sobering verse about the ongoing war in Afghanistan and the desperate conditions faced by our troops.

Matt admits to getting a few complaints about parts of his current show, some of the scenarios although familiar, may just be a little too graphic for some. Check the websites below so you can experience these singularly individual talents.

www.myspace.com/mattpaneshpoetry www.monkeypoet.co.uk www.myspace.com/katetempestwords www.katetempest.com www.myspace.com/joehakimrecordings www.myspace.com/soundslikemikewatts

Reviews, Theatre - Write to Speak featuring Kate Fox and Scarlet Lights at Hull Truck - Wednesday 16th September 09 By Mark Walmsley
	The first performance of the new season of Write to Speak came round pretty quickly and most definitely replicated the first gig a year ago with regards to support and talent. On a personal level, I fully understood what was on offer and although the event didn't seem very well advertised, I was notified by thisisUll the day before and without a hesitation changed my appointments for the big day in order that I made sure I was there for the kick off, in fact I was Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Wednesday 16th September 2009 - Scarlet lights Theatre Company Performs Retail is Detail at Write to Speak at Hull Truck Theatre By Danielle Rhodes
	Retail Is Detail is undoubtedly a 'maverick' production of contemporary comedy, embodying a highly versatile and compatible cast as rare as rocking horse shit. From start to finish the audience is inflamed by the radiance from the performer's energy and fast pace scenes. The play displays a young educated girl facing unemployment, regrettably a conventional product of the current recession. In her despairing attempt to find employment Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Write to Speak featuring Tony Walsh and Dennis Just Dennis at Hull Truck - Wednesday 15th June 09 By Mark Walmsley
	The third and final Write to Speak event of this season at the Hull Truck Theatre on Wednesday 15th July, was headlined by two nationally acclaimed performance poets, Dennis Just Dennis and Tony Walsh, who both hail from Manchester. The nights entertainment was introduced by local poet Joe Hakim who was, in effect 'on the subs bench' as far as performing on these occasions go. Joe has a bigger challenge and I dare say a bigger audience to present himself to at the fourth Latitude Festival in Suffolk where he is performing in the poetry arena on Sat 18th and Sun 19th July.Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Write to Speak featuring Luke Wright at Hull Truck - Monday 29th June 09 By Mark Walmsley
	After attending the first Write to Speak session back in May featuring Mike Watts, Joe Hakim and Mandi Lowe, I certainly wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to attend the second instalment with Luke Wright on Monday night. I arrived at pretty much the same time as the last Write to Speak performance at about 7.20 pm for an 8.00 Read more...

Reviews, Films - Emma Rugg's Directions Tour By Steve Rudd
	It's fair to say that it has been relatively quiet on the Emma Rugg front over the past couple of years. I, for one, thought she'd relocated to the United States in the wake of the Directions Tour she undertook there with Henry Doss in 2007. Having first made contact through the BBC radio show Raw Talent in 2003, Emma had visited Henry in the states on a couple of occasions prior to heading over to hit the Read more...

Reviews, Arts - Adrian Johnson: All Wound Up - Red Gallery exhibition, March-April 2009 By Philip Wincolmlee-Barnes
	I am currently re-reading John Carey's The Intellectuals and The Masses, a fascinating (and sometimes troubling) survey of how the former regarded the latter from the late 19th Century until the 1930's. He charts a course via Nietzsche's theories of 'the Superman vs. the common people' (guess his preference Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Write to Speak at Hull Truck - Wednesday 27th May 09 By Mark Walmsley
	Having found the thisisUll website by accident while looking for an outlet for my hobby and passion, Writing, I was welcomed by Cilla after an initial contact who took a page of my work I submitted and pasted it on the World Wide Web as seen, titled as The Right Hand of God. In addition to this, she asked me if I would be interested in attending the Write to Speak gig at the Hull Truck on Wednesday 27th May. Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Funny Turns and the Opening of The New Hull Truck Theatre By Gary Clark
	I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the opening gala night of the very impressive Hull Truck Theatre to get a first hand look at the new venue and to see the opening night of the latest John Godber play, Funny Turns. The company went to great expense to make all the invited guests welcome with vats of free champagne and a choice of wines already poured out for the 440 guests to gorge Read more...

Reviews, Films - AWAYDAYS at The Bradford Film Festival By Margaret J Shillingford
	When Carty meets Elvis at a Bunnymen gig, they fall headlong into a volatile friendship that each of them aches for but neither can control. Violent, sexy and funny, Awaydays is a blade-sharp rites-of-passage that buzzes with the post-punk energy of its late-70s Liverpool setting. Based on the classic novel by Kevin Sampson, and pulsating to a soundtrack of Joy Division, The Cure, Read more...

Reviews, Films - The Confession By Steve Rudd
	Expertly directed by Dave Kebo and Rudi Liden, The Confession is an extraordinary movie for many and varied reasons, not least because it was shot all in one take. Another major reason why the movie is so unique comes down to the fact that it is 'interactive' and features three and a half addictive hours of multi-angle footage. Having been shot via a multitude of strategically placed CCTV Read more...

Reviews, Films - Slumdog Millionaire By Ruth
	I don't go to the movies, and I don't usually enjoy love stories. My idea of a good love story is Thelma and Louise, Crash, or possibly Monster (with Charlize Theron). The darker element of humanity is what I find appealing. I went with my family to view this film and was utterly blown away. We left the cinema feeling as though we'd been slapped hard across the face and somehow enjoyed it. Read more...

Reviews, Books - The Dance of the Pheasodile by Tim Roux (Upfront Publishing) Reviewed by Nick Quantrill
	With his sixth novel, Hull native Tim Roux, is certainly one of the city's most prolific writers. A committed champion of all things East Yorkshire, the publication of his crime story, The Dance of The Pheasodile is his well deserved opportunity to take the limelight. With a fulfilling job, a successful wife and two beautiful children, Keith McGuire leads an idyllic middle-class life in the south of England. Read more...

Reviews, Books - How Not To Manage by Adam Kirkman and Daniel Mayhew (Quick Brown Fox Publications) Reviewed by Nick Quantrill
	Think you're a great manager? Think you know how to get the best out of people whilst increasing your personal performance and worth? Think again - you can be better - it's simply a matter of attitude. If this all sounds a bit too much like hard word, fear not, this new spoof management manual from York's Adam Kirkman and Daniel Mayhew is here to Read more...

Reviews, Books - What Do I Know Anyway? by Jamie Mcgarry Reviewed By Steve Rudd
	Writing poetry is a painstaking craft, and it's clear from the outset that Scarborough-based Jamie McGarry spends a lot of time in perfecting his poems. An award-winning poet at a young age, Jamie recently unleashed What Do I Know Anyway? - a wry look at life in the twenty-first century. Consisting of twenty-nine superb poems which are spread over seventy-five pages, there really is something for everybody in this, Read more...

Reviews, Films - The Wave (Germany, 2008) and Hunger (UK/Ireland, 2008): Fascism & Faeces By Philip Wincolmlee Barnes
	European cinema has a substantial post-war tradition of coming to terms with, exploring or challenging 20th Century fascism and, in particular, Germany's uneasy goose-stepping heritage, its subsequent national 'identity crisis', and its more recent spasms of political unrest. For example, the flirtatious - and some might say notorious - excesses of Night Porter (Dirk Bogarde Read more...

Reviews, Books - Mosaic by Clive Ashman Reviewed by Tim Roux
	Officially launched last September at Brough's Petuaria Centre, the town where it happened, on the 60th anniversary of the worst unsolved crime in British archaeology, Mosaic is the novel based by writer Clive Ashman on its known facts. If you have ever read Marguerite Yourcenar's The Abyss, a classic and intensely haunting reconstruction of daily life in sixteenth century Europe Read more...

Reviews, Books - The Mermaid Chair by Tony Flynn Reviewed by Tim Roux
	In 1980, Tony Flynn published A Strange Routine, a compelling map to his terrain of loss - the loss of his mother, of his wife, of his child, of his past. Twelve years later, his Body Politic came out, another outright masterpiece, this time including an extended mourning for the victims of state repression. It has been sixteen years since then, Read more...

Reviews, Arts - November 08 - All Systems Go: Red Gallery Group Show By Philip Wincolmlee-Barnes
	According to their publicity (and not counting numerous one-off live events and screenings) this is the gallery's 108th exhibition. This certainly shows my age, as I've been involved with the space in one capacity or another for over ten years now. Not that there appears to be much in the way of personal wear and tear over this time: I still get asked for ID in public houses and in off licences. Read more...

Reviews, Arts - From The Postmodern To The Pastoral: Two Recent Exhibitions in Hull By Philip Wincolmlee-Barnes PortEst Exhibition Photographs by Andrew Quinn
	PortEst (Red Gallery, Sept/Oct) was an exhibition by three Estonian artists - Jane Remm, Piret Peil and Minna Hint - in which the theme of portraiture was subjected to a variety of treatments in different media, making for a diverse and captivating presentation. Francis Bacon used to say (usually whilst somewhat addled) that he was trying to Read more...

Reviews, Arts - A Walk Through H: Some recent cultural musings around Kingston Upon Hull By Philip Wincolmlee-Barnes
	Contemporary Art: either you're 'out' or you're 'in'. Either you 'get' the somewhat jaundiced, laconically ironic stance of much of this work - you know, of how we're living in a post modern world bereft of a single 'grand narrative' - or you remain nonplussed at the often obtuse outpourings of these 'so-called artists'. And many of them don't even have proper jobs (whatever one of those might be...). Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Johnny Comes Home at St Columbas, Drypool By Richard Axford
	It's not usual to give the ending away when writing a theatre review, but in this case you will forgive such crassness. Credo Arts Community have produced an excellent follow up to their last drama, Ruth. After a piece based around death and loyalty, this time they explore the pangs of despair surrounding family breakdown, and the various responses to resolution of the problem. Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Tuesday 3rd June 08 - Dolly at Hull New Theatre By Steve Rudd
	A Rockman Music production, this grand old celebration of the glamourous life and times of Country legend Dolly Parton pulls out all the stops to entertain. Even on the opening night of its debut UK tour, the show drew a huge crowd of Dolly fans who were in the mood for singing and clapping along to all her best-known hits. Read more...

Reviews, Books - Here, Bullet by Brian Turner Reviewed by Michelle Dee
	Here, Bullet is as startling as it is direct. The anthology of poems written by the multi award-winning U.S. war veteran Brian Turner uncovers the landscape of the war in Iraq with unswerving honesty and importantly he writes from a non-political viewpoint. Brian Turner saw active service for seven years which included leading an Infantry Team in Iraq with the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division in November 2003. Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Wednesday 19th March 08 - The Bat Trilogy at Hull New Theatre By Steve Rudd Photos by Matt Rudd
	Back in black and ready to rock the venue from the rafters to its foundations, Steve Steinman vaulted into an epic rendition of Life is A Lemon without delay, the incredible power of his vocal delivery reaching the row furthest from the stage with ease. I should know: that's where I was sat, yet the sights and sounds even from back there were to be savoured. Having mimicked Meatloaf for almost twenty years now, Steve Steinman's Read more...

Reviews, Theatre - Saturday 2nd February 08 - Steve Steinman's Bat Trilogy at The Futurist Theatre, Scarborough By Steve Rudd
	Pulling out all the stops to put on an electrifying show, Steve Steinman and his hard-rocking entourage pulled into Scarborough on what was a freezing cold night. Fortunately, fans of Steve and his Bat Trilogy tour showed up in their droves, crowding into The Futurist to witness one of the first shows of his new tour... and with some scandalously talented Read more...

Reviews, Out of Town - Wednesday 6th February 08 - Open Mic Night at The Locomotive Inn, York By Michelle Dee
	A bit of a thisisUll gang night out this one, with Cilla Uberwebfuhrer, Jane Fozzy Foster and Michelle the scribe Dee. Representing Ull tonight Joe just got signed Hakim and Mike, mad as a bicycle Watts. Our trip out to York began with a vicious nasal assault, as we got stuck behind a fertilizer tractor just before Market Weighton. In the back of the car it smelt as though a rat Read more...

Reviews, Cinema - VUE HD Digital Cinema, Princes Quay By Dave Fox
	I feel a bit of a naughty writing this, considering my friend is running the new cinema in St Steven's Square (sorry Sal) but I am so impressed with Vue, the new cinema on the top deck of the Princes Quay. I've just recently got into the High Definition at home with Blue Ray and HD TV so I was buzzing when I heard about a brand Read more...