WORD! at the Y Theatre, 6th June 2010.
Every month, many many people potter down to the evening of wonder and entertainment that is WORD!. This month being no exception, except that its the last show to be held at the Y theatre before next month it breaks into new walk museum as part of the Lyric Lounge festival. As a regular myself to WORD! i knew what to expect, those who wish to perform arrive promptly at 7pm to sign up and pick their time slots, and members of the audience arrive shortly before 8pm when it begins. There is always a great que of people wanting to sign up, so its always advised to arrive early to avoid disappointment. This months event was slightly different in that WORD! held its Annual General Meeting before sign up, in which the main volunteers that run WORD! and the poets involved, all get together to discuss the highlights and what improvements or suggestions people may have. I arrived only catching the last few minutes of a heated debate about filming issues and promotions for lyric lounge.
On rolled 8pm and Compare Tim Sayers introduced us with a great poem that he had performed this year at Glastonbury, the name of which i shall not mention, and those there will know why! nevertheless it kicked off another great open mic session, 10 performers in the first act, a short break, then final 10 acts before the pre-booked poet, This month renowned and local poet Steve Carrol. The open mic session always breeds diversity and new acts each month, so i was pleased to see this month was no different. several performers took the stage, announcing they hadn’t performed before and a wave of cheering and applause filled the air. thats the great thing about WORD! its not just a chance to have your 3 minutes of fame, but its a community, a supportive and friendly network of people who always encourage any new comers and invite them to put their word out there, in whichever way they chose. After the last performance came Steve Carrol, who amazed us all with his witty poems which was followed by announcements about lyric lounge and a social evening at The Hind.
Afterwards i spoke to Karen Ferguson, a fellow lyric lounge volunteer but a first timer at WORD! who told me what she thought about the evening. ” I went to the Word performance for the first time. We really enjoyed the poem about Leicester, loving leicester myself. The poet spoke of all the different types of food you can eat in Leicester chinese, japanese, caribbean, indian…. She mentioned we have dinosaurs and the lovely blue building our children are fascinated by it so it was funny to hear someone else mention it. I liked the secret life of bees a poem about bees set against a back drop of film and soft music. Lastly thought Steve Carrol actor & poet was brilliant with the poem about his dad who laid roads with his bare hands I could imagine him by the end of the poem. We had a good time and was definately something different.”
Another man i met that night on his first visit had said that, after the first half of seeing how things go, he was then encouraged totally to return next month and perform himself.Proving another sucessful evening for WORD!
By Tara Gatherer
