POETRY FOR PEOPLE WHO DON’T LIKE POETRY
Revolutionary poetry team BANG SAID THE GUN have announced that they will be returning to the Underbelly Festival on 25th July. This celebration of spoken word will feature special guest and award winning poet TIM KEY (star of The Alan Partridge Movie) and acclaimed performer and poet JEMIMA FOXTROT (shortlisted for the Arts Foundation Spoken Word Fellowship, commissions include Tate Britain, the BBC, Tate Modern, and Latitude Festival).
The collective who have been voted the Best Poetry Night in the UK (by The Times) will also be returning to Leicester Square Theatre on 13th October with another performance. This announcement comes mid-way through their first nationwide tour.
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) SIR ANDREW MOTION (ex Poet Laureate), HOLLIE MCNISH (Ted Hughes Winner 2017). 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, various one-off shows including an Edinburgh Festival Fringe performance and a UK tour.
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
With thanks to Nationwide Building Society for supporting Bang Said The Gun’s first national tour
LISTINGS INFORMATION
Bang Said The Gun – Underbelly Festival
Date & Time: 25th July, 19:30
Tickets: www.bangsaidthegun.com
Bang Said The Gun – Leicester Square Theatre
Date & Time: 13th October, 19:00
Tickets: www.bangsaidthegun.com
For more information and press tickets, please contact: Florrie Sheehan: [email protected] / 0207 598 7222
