There’s a powerful line-up of poetry and music on offer at this month’s regular Lancaster writing and music event, Spotlight, next week, with some of the area’s top-notch writer’s and performers in a special event to kick off this year’s litfest festival.
Marvin Cheeseman made his debut as a comedy performance poet in 1998 at Manchester’s Frog and Bucket comedy club. The following year, after winning several poetry slams, he was featured in the Manchester Poetry Festival. The year 2000 saw the release of his first poetry collection Full Metal Jacket Potato published by The Bad Press. The success of this book led to appearances at a range of festivals and comedy venues around the country, including four separate appearances at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature.
Over the last five years Marvin’s work has featured on BBC Radio 1, 2 and 4 and he appeared on the BBC television poetry series Whine Gums. He has published a limerick collection entitled Making Prawn Sandwiches for Roy Keane. A new book, We Hate It When Our Ex-Lodgers Become Successful was published in 2008.
Poet Kim Moore is currently on the second year of a part time MA in Creative Writing at Manchester Met. This year she has been a runner up in the Mslexia 2009 Poetry Competition and had work accepted in Poetry Review, The Frogmore Papers, Iota and Staple. She is a member of ‘A Poem and A Pint’ who organise poetry readings in Barrow and writes, usually in the car, in between teaching at different schools, which has the added effect of making her value the time she gets to write.
Poet Ron Scowcroft returns to The Spotlight with a new selection of poems. Recently chosen to appear in The New Writer, his prize-winning work has featured regularly in national poetry magazines and on the Guardian Books website.
Multi competition winning poet, Peter Crompton writes from the heart. From insane and frustrated rants about Tesco culture and self scan checkouts, to the depths of domestic violence and mental health. Pete will take you on a roller-coaster ride of emotion. Funny, frustrated… passionate and gentle, expect to leave satisfied that all your emotions have been jingled with.
Also in the line-up for the night, which as usual will kick off with an Open Mic session during which “Anything Can Happen!”, will be music from Paddy Garrigan and Rashid Winter.
Paddy Garrigan began writing music as a teenager. This proved fleeting and didn’t last long, so he soon made the difficult transition into writing music in his twenties. Pleased with the results, over the course of the last five or so years, Paddy has diversified into writing music in his thirties. He hopes to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Paddy most frequently writes whilst walking, the beat of his feet marking out the metre of the song. This does not fully explain why so many of his songs have ended up being in time. His songs cover a variety of subjects ranging from a brief argument with the Universe to the monsters of the briny deep, from stone circles to skin grafts. He has recently started writing a musical based on the form of the traditional Mummer’s plays which he hopes will revive the flagging fortunes of both the musical theatre and of Mummer’s plays.
Paddy’s musical CV is a wonder to behold; open the folder and it regales you with ‘The Toreador’s song’ from Carmen before launching into ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ from The Sound Of Music. Paddy plays a plethora of musical instruments, which he collects and hangs on the walls of this house, as they fade less quickly than wallpaper. He is currently one of the three corners of the Wierdstring Band, and was a member of the Pier Group, The Wisemen, The Puma Sutras, Dan Haywood’s New Hawks, Moonstone, The Gokarnas, Sonic Tradition and several other bands you’ve never heard of. His music has been performed across Europe, albeit generally by Paddy himself.
Making his first appearance on the bill at Spotlight, Rashid Winter made his fab debut at the Open Mic back in July and impressed with his jazzy guitar playing.
• Compered by Simon Baker the literary parade kicks off on Friday 16th October at 8.30pm at the Storey Auditorium, Meeting House Lane, Lancaster. Doors: 8.15pm, Admission: £4/£2 (Conc.). More info: www.spotlightlancaster.co.uk