Luke Wright: The Ballad Seller

Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club
Ad
Covid 19 Information
Covid safe environment
Masks are COMPULSARY when travelling to us, while you are in the queue, when you are visiting the toilet or smoking area. You can only remove your mask while seated at your table.

- All drinks must be consumed while you are seated.
- Please arrive with all members of your booking.
- There will be ample signage displayed to help you get to the event space and move around inside.
- Tables have been separated by at least 1m for your safety and arrnaged in a Covid Compliant manner. Please remain seated in your areas. DO NOT move furniture at all or join tables together.
- On arrival please use the hand sanitiser provided at the entrance.
- Hand sanitiser stations will be situated throughout the event space please use them frequently.
- Hand washing facilities are available in the toilets.
- Toilets will be cleaned regularly during the day.
- Tables will be cleaned between sittings.
- Staff have been thoroughly trained in line with Gov guidelines, have access to PPE and will be washing their hands regularly.
- We will be operating non-contact table service with card payment only.
- When making your booking and gathering your attendees YOU MUST comply with current GOVERNMENT RESTRICTIONS. Within your group please attend with people and group makeups that comply with Gov advice AND your own personal health circumstances.
- ABOVE ALL DO NOT ATTEND if you are showing symptoms of COVID-19
Event has ended
This event ended on Wednesday 14th of July 2021
Admission
£12
Venue Information
Bethnal Green Workingmen's Club
Pollard Row, E2 6NB
Nearest Tube/Rail Stations
Bethnal Green Overground 0.27 miles

Luke Wright: The Ballad Seller, London date & UK tour

Luke Wright, winner of Best Spoken Word Performer at May’s 2021 Saboteur Awards, has based his 11th full length poetry show on bawdy Georgian street ballads and takes it to London’s Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club at 7.30pm on Wednesday 14 July as part of an extensive UK tour. The show will also celebrate the limited edition book of the same name which features illustrations by The Guardian’s chief political cartoonist Martin Rowson.

Back in Georgian times we got all our news from poetry. Before newspapers, broadcasts or the internet, ballad sellers would hawk broadside ballads on street corners for a penny. Scandalous affairs, grisly crimes, and colourful characters were brought to life in rhyming verse long before the first tabloid was printed.

Wright, hailed by The Independent as ‘One of the funniest and most brilliant poets of his generation’ has rewritten the very best of these stories for the modern ear. Take a trip through Drury Lane gin shops with the Boxing Baroness; filch oysters by the dozen with celebrated gormandizer (glutton) Dando; and escape the Bull Ring with Jemmy the Rockman. Expect scandal, excess, and beautiful flawed humanity.

Luke says: ‘These days we associate the word ‘ballad’ with a kind of slow, syrupy song, but traditionally it meant a narrative poem or song. For hundreds of years ballads were the backbone of the average Briton’s cultural experience. By the 18th century the most gossipy, salacious news stories were written as ballads and sold in their thousands. Frankly, the quality of the verse was pretty awful, but the characters brilliant. In this show I’ve brought those characters to life by extending the ballads and giving their stories space to breathe.’

Luke Wright is one of Britain’s top stand-up poets. Flamboyant, political and riotously funny, Wright’s inventive shows are enjoyed by thousands of people across the world every year. Praised by Patti Smith for his ‘cool poems’, he is the author of three full collections and three pamphlets of poetry, and three verse plays. He has won a Fringe First, a Stage Award for Acting Excellence, and three Saboteur Awards. The Guardian said ‘His performances rumble with rage, passion and humour, peppered with brilliantly smart observation’.

He’s a regular tour support for John Cooper Clarke and MC for The Libertines (frontman Carl Barât is a big fan, describing him as ‘One of the greats. A poetic pugilist’ and was recently dubbed ‘the bard of lockdown’ by The Daily Telegraph after his marathon stint of 100 consecutive nights of online shows.

The Ballad Seller will tour throughout 2021. Luke is also touring his third verse play The Remains of Logan Dankworth and his newest collection, Come! Come on! Meet me!.

www.lukewright.co.uk

London listings info:
Luke Wright: The Ballad Seller
Multi award winning poet updates the scandalous, bawdy and colourful Georgian ballad storytelling style for the modern ear in his eleventh full length poetry show.
London Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, 42-44 Pollard Row E2 6NB
14 July £12 7.30pm 0207 739 7170 www.workersplaytime.net

Tags: Theatre

User Reviews

There are no user reviews