POETRY FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE POETRY.

 The gang behind the best poetry night in the UK (voted by the Times), Bang Said The Gun are calling our nation’s aspiring poets to step up to the Golden Gun Award challenge on tour. Members of the public will have the unique opportunity to perform in open mic slams, after special guests including HOLLIE MCNISH (around 4 million hits on YouTube), BRIAN PATTEN (Liverpool Poets) and SALENA GODDEN (“the doyenne of the spoken word scene”, Ian McMillan) have departed the stage. For further details and to enter, willing participants are asked to get in touch with [email protected].

After taking London by storm with a sell-out residency at the Bloomsbury Theatre and raucous performances at the Udderbelly Festival and Leicester Square Theatre last year, Bang Said The Gun will tour theatres nationwide from 12^th March to 28^th July. Started as an antidote to dreary poetry and even drearier poetry nights, co-founders DAN COCKRILL and MARTIN GALTON established the spoken word club 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 including ROGER MCGOUGH CBE (BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please presenter), KATE TEMPEST (Ted Hughes award winner) and SIR ANDREW MOTION (ex Poet Laureate), trademark makeshift maracas and anarchic spirit quickly gained a cult following and was soon being played to packed audiences on a weekly basis. Since January 2016, the raw, fast-moving and highly-energised night has continued its rise with a completely sold out monthly residency at the Bloomsbury Theatre and various one-off shows including an Edinburgh Festival Fringe performance.

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.”

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 played to audiences in the North-West with Bang Said The Gun: Manchester and across the Atlantic with 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) and LAURIE BOLGER (shortlisted for Young Poet Laureate for London and former Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park poet in residence).

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

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

 It’s like mud wrestling with words Kate Tempest

BSTG is a vortex of energy and enthusiasm Andrew Motion

With thanks to Nationwide Building Society for supporting Bang Said The Gun’s first national tour

Tickets are available to buy here www.bangsaidthegun.com

For more information and press tickets, please contact: Victoria Wedderburn: [email protected] / 0207 598 722

BANG SAID THE GUN DATES TOUR DATES:

LONDON DATES: