POETRY FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE POETRY.
After a brief hiatus, the best poetry gig in the UK (voted by The Times), Bang Said The Gun, returns in the New Year with a highly anticipated monthly residency at a new venue – the Bloomsbury Theatre.
Starting as an antidote to dreary poetry and even drearier poetry nights, co-founders DAN COCKRILL and MARTIN GALTON established the spoken word club around 17 years ago in a pub in Soho before it transferred to a pub in Bermondsey. The rich mix of new talent performing alongside some of the most established names in poetry, trademark makeshift maracas and anarchic spirit quickly gained a cult following and the show has played to a packed house on a weekly basis. Now, from 28th January 2016, the raw, fast-moving and highly-energised night will take place at the Bloomsbury Theatre’s studio space on the last Thursday of each month before culminating in Bang Said The Gun’s biggest poetry extravaganza to date in the venue’s main hall on 13th October.
Amongst other guests, the opening night will see world champion slam poet, occasional rap battler and recent TED talker HARRY BAKER perform. Previous poets hosted at Bang Said The Gun include: ROGER MCGOUGH CBE (BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please presenter), KATE TEMPEST (Ted Hughes award winner), HOLLIE MCNISH (over 3 ½ million hits on YouTube), IAN MCMILLAN (BBC Radio 3’s Verb and Adverb host) and SIR ANDREW MOTION (ex Poet Laureate), as well as poet/musicians such as former Pulp frontman JARVIS COCKER and hip-hop duo RIZZLE KICKS.
COCKRILL says: “we have dragged poetry kicking and screaming into the 21st Century”
GALTON says: “the night is a rollercoaster of emotion…It’s loud and raucous, as political as it’s trivial as serious as its funny.”
Aside from regularly “creating a vortex of energy and enthusiasm” (MOTION) in South London, Bang Said The Gun has had 15 films broadcast on Channel 4 and an anthology, Mud Wrestling With Words, published with Burning Eye Books. The show has also performed to audiences in the North-West and across the Atlantic with Bang Said The Gun: Manchester and Bang Said The Gun: New York.
Additional Bang members include ROB AUTON (shortlisted for Arts Foundation Spoken Word Award and former Glastonbury poet in residence), LAURIE BOLGER (shortlisted for Young Poet Laureate for London and former Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park poet in residence), PETER HAYHOE (multi-slam champion), JACK ROOKE (resident artist at Roundhouse and Soho Theatre’s Comedy Lab) and SARAH REDINGTON.
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What has been said about BSTG:
A raucous combination of poetry and comedy The Telegraph
Grabs poetry by its shoulders and shakes it until dirty, funny words fall out Londonist
Bang Said The Gun is regularly described as the UK’s premiere spoken word night Newsweek
Like all the best things in life, BSTG is done with belief and passion Phill Jupitus
There has never been a show quite like this before. It’s time is now Murray Lachlan Young
LISTINGS INFORMATION:
Venue: Bloomsbury Theatre
Date: 28 Jan, 25 Feb, 31 Mar, 28 Apr, 26 May, 30 Jun and 13 Oct
Time: Doors: 7.30pm / Start: 8pm
Twitter & website: @bangsaidthegun and www.bangsaidthegun.com
For more information and press tickets, please contact: Victoria Wedderburn: victoriaw@avalonuk.com / 0207 598 7222
