Robert has the chance to be on prime time TV! What could possibly go wrong? A comedy poetry show about not becoming famous.
Join performance poet Robert Garnham for his new solo show, Bouncer. When Robert is asked to perform on the UK’s biggest TV talent show, he dreams of fame and fortune and never having to leaflet in Edinburgh again! But of course, these things never go the way you want them to go . . . An hour of storytelling, poetry and comedy about fame, and hope, and dreaming.
‘Playful, warm . . Funny and always surprising’. (Write Out Loud)
‘Wise’. (Word NYC).
‘Clever and entertaining’. (Barnstaple Theatrefest).
‘There’s warmth in his whimsy, it’s sturdy not flimsy’. (Matt Harvey)
‘Witticism, wordplay and wistful romanticism’. (Dandy Darkly)
On a cold, January evening, I caught a train from Devon to London. I was looking for some sense of magic in the air, a barely-perceptible tingle as if fortune were tickling my conscience and smoothing the way to a stardust future. But the train was cold, and dinner was a chicken tikka pasty I’d bought from the convenience store next to the station.
The countryside was hidden in darkness. Beyond the reflection of my own face I could make out tiny villages, clusters of lights in the middle of nowhere, lonely cow barns lit up against the frost, and I thought, do any of these people also dream of everlasting fame?
This is a poem about a man who’s obsessed with his record collection. Taped live at Exeter’s Taking the Mic, November 2023. I hope you like it.
Rekkuds
Rekkuds
I like my rekkuds I’ve got one or two Playing my rekkuds Is something I do.
They’re mostly jazz, The rekkuds I play. Whenever I listen The world melts away.
I went to the rekkud shop and I said to the chap in there, I said, I thought you liked jazz?, and he said, I do like jazz, And I said, if you like jazz so much, Then how come you ain’t bought any of these rekkuds?
I like my rekkuds. 33 rpm I go home at night I’m surrounded by them.
I went to this party and this bloke says to me, got any Kylie Minogue? I said, bugger off with your Kylie Minogue.
I like my rekkuds. They’re mostly jazz. I play them loud So I can hear them When I’m having a wazz.
I went to the hardware shop the other day and I bought a bucket, Just a plain ordinary bucket, and when I paid for it, The bloke behind the counter looked at my bucket And he said, ‘Enjoy’. How the bloody g hell am I meant to enjoy a bucket?
I like my rekkuds. Of that I’m quite certain. I play Frank Sinatra in the shower. I face the vinyl curtain.
I saw a friend of mine, I asked him what job he had now, He said, beefeater. He meant the restaurant but I said, oh, You mean the Tower of Lunnon? Nobody laughed. Why didn’t you laugh, I asked my mates, you miserable lot. They said, We would have done, if we’d have known it was funny.
I like my rekkuds. I left a Thelonious Monk rekkud in the car. Someone broke in And added two more.
I treat my body like it’s a temple. Shame it’s been Converted into a Wetherspoons.
I like my rekkuds. I like this poem. I’ve made it to the end, for once. Must be some kind of Rekkud.
So I’ve performed my new show five times now. And I’m performing it again tomorrow in Paignton, to an invited audience at a secret location. I’m starting to get to know it now, because these sorts of things only seem to come alive once they’ve been seen by an audience.
In a sense, I only really discovered what the show was about once audiences had seen it. It’s far darker than I thought, with themes touching on fame, ambition, truth, disappointment, even mental health.
There are poems which always seem to get good reactions from the audience. Two of these, ‘Who Wants Fame?’, and ‘Fabaranza’, are real fast-paced silly poems. ‘Zach’ always seems to go down well, too. As does ‘You Should Write A Poem About That’. In the latter poem, I decided to employ a puppet so that it appeared that I was having an actual conversation with someone, and I think this part of the show really works.
The first place I performed the show was at the St. Anne’s Centre in Barnstaple, a wonderful ex-chapel with very creaky floorboards and Gothic architecture. It’s so old that the new extension on the side was built during Tudor times! I performed the show four times here and had some lovely audiences. Last week I performed the show in Guildford, upstairs at The Keep pub, to another lovely audience. I made a slight change for this gig, adding a poem at the start of the show, ‘Coffee Shop’, which I’d written in an attempt to emulate the style of Dame Edith Sitwell.
On the way home from Guildford, I pondered on the script and how there are several moments where it seems that the tension needs popping. To relax I listened to one of my favourite comedians, John Mulaney, but instead of relaxing, I listened to how he would do this during his own monologues. I’ve since added three ‘tags’, as the Americans call them, moments where I comment on what I’ve just said, hopefully for some audience reaction. I’ll be using these ‘tags’ during the Paignton performance this week.
The thing about a new show is that one is always comparing it with the show that came before. The previous show, ‘Yay!’, accompanied the Burning Eye book of the same name, and I performed it over two years. I’d also written and rehearsed the show during lockdown, so I knew the thing inside out. But there was always the sense that the scope of the show was limited because it had to use poems from the book.
With ‘Bouncer’, the sky was the limit, and while I was free to choose the subject matter, I then had to write bespoke poems to fit in. So it felt with ‘Bouncer’ that the poems were not as well established as those in ‘Yay!’, particularly because the poems in ‘Yay!’, had been written over a period of five years, not a few weeks! Consequently, I rehearsed much, much more because I wasn’t sure myself whether they should have been in the show at all.
But I’m now much more relaxed about the show. I know it inside out, more than I probably ever did with ‘Yay!’, and because of this I can have fun with my voice and delivery and movement and all of the other things that a performance poet has to think about, rather than just trying to remember what comes next.
So, basically, I’m very happy with how the show is going. The next stop is the Edinburgh Fringe in August, and who knows what that will bring?
Below is a list of the poems in the show, as well as a video of ‘You Should Write a Poem About That’.
Coffee Shop Zach You Should Write a Poem About That Who Wants Fame? Beard Envy London is Mine for the Taking The Contestants Await Fabaranza Your City Never Seemed So Cruel Woodlouse Boy
When I heard that the great literary extremist Professor Zazzo Thiim was holding a symposium on the use of alliteration in Antarctic literature, I knew I just had to attend.
I knew that getting to the venue in the first place was in itself was a hard enough job; the convention was to be held in a remote hotel in the mountains which, in the middle of winter, would be cut off from the world by snow drifts, and sure enough, when the week of the convention came, the only way to get to the hotel was by walking the last two miles. As the darkness gathered around me, and large
fiakes of snow began to fll from the black, black sky, I gripped the handle of my suitcase and made my way up the track into the wilderness.
It must have taken a couple of hours to make the journey, and when I arrived at the hotel I was feeling irritable and uncharitable to say the least. My eyes were blinded by the motion of the snow as it had flown across my vision, and my fingers numbed from gripping the case for so long. The first thing I did was to dump my bags next to the reception desk and sit next to the roaring fire, in order that I may thaw my aching bones and curse my stupidity at having set out on such a journey in the first place. Yet only the one thought, of any substance, kept coming to me as I sat there in the orange glow: after all this effort, this had better be worth it.
I soon became aware that an old man was sitting next to me and, after a while, he asked if I was there to see Zazzo Thim.
“Yes”, I replied, “Though I am now beginning to wonder if I have made a mistake.”
The old man wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck and gave a chuckle. “I can assure you that the convention will be well-managed and adequately attended for my needs, for I, myself, happen to be Zazzo Thiim”.
“What makes you so sure that it will be so well-attended?” l asked. It was snowing heavily outside now, and the hotel did not seem to be bursting with guests.
“The subject in itself”, the old man said, smiling gleefully. “Who could fail but be enchanted by such a subject? Antarctic literature, let me remind you, is an expanding genre. I expect there shall be quite a rush tomorrow morning for seats”.
At this, he looked first left, and then right, and then whispered to me in a severe, confidential tone:
“It’s quite possible that some people might not be allowed in’.
At once l felt bad. How close l had been in deciding not to come, yet others might not have been so foolhardy. I knew that there would probably be a limited attendance as it was, yet Thiim was sure that there would be more. I felt a sinking sensation inside of me, the dejection he might feel on walking into the conference centre that next morning only to see myself sitting there.
“I can assure you”, I told the old man, “That we shall all be thoroughly enlightened”
I went to my room and changed for dinner. I decided that I would enjoy myself, and I ordered the most expensive item on the menu, yet the restaurant was virtually empty, with the exception of a table on the far side of the room where Professor Zazzo Thiim slurped, quite noisily, his soup. Every now and then I would look over at him and feel a well of pity deep in my stomach, and I soon decided that something would have to be done. But what could I do? As the waiters kept moving past, as if gauging whether or not we had finished, a plan began to formulate in my mind that I could, somehow, interest other people in the subject of Antarctic literature and perhaps even bribe them into attending. But the plan seemed hopeless, even fanciful.
After dinner I went for a walk outside in the snow. The mountains loomed, black shapes and shadows in the night sky, while gentle flakes fell from above, illuminated by the lights from the hotel. A frost was setting in, and the ground crunched with each footstep. At last l came to one of the chalets, and I was just about to turn around and head back to the main building when the door opened and Zazzo Thiim himself emerged.
“Ah!”, he said. “It’s you! Come in, come in, we shall discuss literature!” Feeling awkward at this sudden invitation, I tried to formulate some reason why I might go back, when all the time I advanced towards his cabin. “What a brave, hardy soul”, he said, “To be out on a night like this!” He held the door open for me and I entered the chalet.
It was warm inside and a fire blazed in the hearth. He motioned that I sit down, and before long he was telling me about his interest in Antarctic literature.
“I have always been interested in a young writer of Norwegian descent, Petter Jansen, a writer of such talent and deftness of touch. He would describe the harsh winters of his homeland and the very essence of being in the snow, a subject I would find most glamorous in comparison to my lowly upbringing. As soon as I could I decided I would seek out Jansen and learn from him the craft of story-telling, of descriptive language and other literary ideals. Only, according to those who worked in the book industry, Jansen was working in the Antarctic, at a research station near the South Pole”.
“Armed only with protective clothing and a set of his works, I joined an expedition by ski-mobile in the middle of the Antarctic summer. The nights were cold and the days long, the sun never seemed to leave the sky, and all the time I was filled with so many questions, so much I wanted to ask. His characters, you see, were fragile beings, brittle, like flowers left too long in the frost, and I wanted to find out why he spent more time describing the weather than he did the emotions and sensibilities of his characters. There were other questions, too: why he
should have spent all his life in cold places, when surely he could have lived anywhere on the royalties from his volumes, and why he had given up writing fiction only to work as a research scientist in the South Pole.
“On the tenth day we reached the Norwegian research station and I was privileged enough to meet Jansen. He was not what l had expected; of course, in the years since he had been published he had become an old man, and he sported the most wondrous beard, which almost reached down to the middle of his chest. He had a gruff accent, a dismissive way of sharing information, and a healthy dislike of anyone, including myself. I followed him as he worked, and watched as he drilled holes in the ice, sank instruments down into packed snow, took readings on electronic devices. He was monosyllabic, non-committal, and despite
everything, I started to wonder if I should have been there at all.
But that night we went to his tent and he shared a bottle of vodka with me. ‘And now’, he said, ‘The real work begins’. Imagine my surprise when he produced from a wooden chest a large manuscript, several thousand pages long, and a pen, whose ink kept freezing and he had to warm by candle-light. ‘What is this?, I asked. He turned to me, wearily, his face lit by oi lamps and the candles, and he said: “This is the finest Antarctic novel ever written. Indeed’, he continued, This is the only Antarctic novel ever written’.
I watched, silently, as he wrote. And with what devotion! He forsook everything in the outside worid, every distraction, and bent his head over the manuscript, writing with a bare hand, the fingers gripped tightly around the nib. For two hours he wrote, diligently, painstakingly, until his alarm clock buzzed and, of a sudden, he put the pen down, gathered the pages, and placed them back in a wooden chest.
The next day followed the same routine: scientific work in the daytime, an evening of vodka, then writing by table light. He didn’t seem to mind the fact that I was there with him – indeed. he almost welcomed my company and the interest I showed in his writing. Finally it came time for me to leave, for my colleagues were due to start the hazardous journey back to the coast, and I decided I would revel in his company for the last time.
“When he began writing I tried to watch the words as they were formed, but he kept shying away from me, positioning his body in such a way that I could not read what he was writing, and when the alarm clock rang to signal the end of his writing shift, he placed the pen down, the manuscript in the box, and he said to me: “That’s it now. Scram. The experiment is over!’
‘How crestfallen I was! It was as if I had been stabbed in the back. I returned to my tent that night feeling hurt, abused, and with a general dissatisfaction not only with Petter Jansen, but with all writers everywhere. That night I could not sleep, and a fierce wind blew up, which rattle the tent and moaned across the barren lands. In the midst of this delirium one thought came and it would not go – that possibly I might sneak into Jansen’s tent and read the manuscript for myself.
‘Two hours later the idea still lived with a bizarre logic. I could take the strain no more, and, as the first rays of the sun began to peek over the continental mountains, I left my lodgings, walked across the snow, and let myself into Jansen’s tent. He slept well, and I had managed to let myself in without him hearing. With the wooden box right below me, I had no choice but to open it up and read the manuscript right then and there.
‘Oh, the power! “The Silken Breath of a Penguin in Repose’ is a work the likes of which I shall never forget! The intense truth, the humanity on display, the concern for a world forever spoiled by man’s eternal folly! The language seemed to ooze like honey poured on from a spoon, and yet the prose was sparse, the words as economical as ice. The book was set in the future, or very slightly in the future, and Jansen himself was a character, a fortune teller who was never wrong. And the final scene, where the mad explorer wipes away a frozen tear to think of the harm his fellow man has done, almost reduced me to an insensitive and indiscriminate howl
of anguish. When I glanced up, I noticed that Jansen was staring right at me.
‘What treachery is this?’, he asked. ‘My private words, spoiled for all time! What is this but an invasion of the lowest order! How dare you spoil these most sacred pages!’
‘I had no choice’, I replied. ‘And in any case, such a wondrous work needs an audience. There is much here that might change the world. How selfish can you be if you keep this from those who need it the most? What I have just read is the most intelligent, the most poetic work ever created’.
‘You have ruined my work!’, Jansen continued. ‘You have ruined me! We had a trust, you and me, a friendship . . .’. .. And then he looked at me for a while. ‘Did you really think it was that good?’
“So we came to an arrangement, right then and there, that I would tell the world about his work, but only if I choose locations and places that would guarantee the audience would be small. And that’s why l’m here now, in the mountains, in the middle of winter, about to host a conference on alliteration in Antarctica Literature. I mean, what kind of sad person would possibly venture all the way out here for such a thing?’
I looked at the old man and smiled. Professor Zazzo Thiim then cleared his throat.
“Apart from you, that is”.
Alas, the conference did not work out exactly as he had planned. I had left messages and notes to most of the staff and the guests of the hotel that the old man needed support, that he would be crestfallen if the conference was overly attended, and that they should do everything within their powers to put off potential attendees, and yet, that next morning, when Professor Zazzo Thiim took to the stage, he was confronted by a hall completely filled with people.
“Well …”, he said, laughing feebly into the microphone, then wincing as the feedback screeched round the hall. He activated the overhead projector to show a picture of a penguin, which then hung on the wall behind him, solemn, ethereal.
“There is . .”, he stuttered, “There is, in the power and beauty of. . .Huh-huh”.
Pleadingly, he looked at me, as if asking that I should remember the reasons why he had decided to hold the conference at this particular hotel. So what else could I do?
While no-one else was looking, I leaned behind me and activated the fire alarms. Everyone got up from their seats and the hall was evacuated in seconds.
Last year I became the Bard of Exeter. During this time I’ve been working on various poems about Exeter, written often during visits to the city. You can read them below, they’re not in any kind of order. I really do like the city of Exeter and I’ve enjoyed my time as the Bard.
Robert Garnham, writer and humorist
Poem
The River Exe Reminded me Of my ex. One has a sinewy Snaking nature And a big marsh Where wild things live, The other Is the River Exe. (You must have seen That one coming, Dear reader). One would turn Several times a day And often Not realise it. The other Is the River Exe. (Tidal, you see).
Poem
Oh, Exeter Airport. From the front You look Like a primary school. Your departure gates Are numbered Gate One and Gate Two. Your duty free shop Is more of a shelf. ‘You don’t hear many planes’, A friend observed As we sat there in the Living room of your Departure lounge. ‘That’s because’, I quipped, ‘There aren’t any’.
Poem
She said, ‘Take me to your favourite place, Restaurant, bar, tavern, Eatery, joint, cafe, Bistro, bistro, bistro, Any place we can get food, It doesn’t matter where, So long as we’re together. We can look into each other’s eyes Amid the ambience, And fill our souls with sustenance Of two different kinds’.
Next to the vending machine On platform three at Exeter St Davids, She said, ‘I think we should See other people’.
Poem
I’m Bard of Exeter, I said. More like, barred from Exeter, my friend replied. Ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, funny.
I’m Bard of Exeter, I said. More like, barred from Exeter, my cousin replied. Ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, funny.
I’m Bard of Exeter, I said. What’s that?, my friend Bill replied. It’s an honorary position, I explained. No, he said, I meant what’s Exeter?
I’m Bard of Exeter, I said. More like, barred from Exeter, my neighbour said. Ha ha ha ha ha. Yeah, funny.
This is why I don’t Tell many of my friends What I’m up to.
Poem
There’s a view of the Cathedral, The B and B owner said, From your window. And she was right. She had blue tacked it To the wall of the shed.
Poem
Let’s picnic in the grass, he said. In front of the medieval cathedral Whose precious beauty has tempted Many a passing tourist to drop to their knees And feint at its buttresses. The rain Made my pork pie soggy.
Poem
Is there a ram In the RAMM? A ramp To put the ram In the RAMM? A van to carry The ram to the ramp To put it in the RAMM? A man to drive the van To carry the ram to the ramp To put in the RAMM? No, But there’s a giraffe.
Poem
I contacted my sister, I texted her To say we’d arrived In Exeter. She didn’t know we were going, It perplexed her.
Poem
From Telegraph Hill The lights of Exeter Twinkle in the distance Like private stars in a constellation Of one. I’m lost in that timeless beauty Once again.
And then we drive Round and round The multi storey car park. The poetry Has long since evaporated.
Poem
As Splatford Split approached I still didn’t know Which way you would go. I watched your hands on the wheel. Lazily, you turned the car to the Left hand lane And I did a little air fist pump, Then held on, Ready for the rocket boost Of Telegraph Hill. Quicker this way, you said. Mmmm, I replied, And I wanted to kiss you.
Poem
The next stop is Exeter St. Thomas. To the uninitiated, they panic, Bloody hell, we’re here much sooner Than we thought. It’s OK, I think to myself, relaxing, you’ve still got Another five minutes until Exeter St. David’s. But it must be disconcerting Nonetheless. Similar names, you see.
That night, before I went to sleep, I thought, Oh, Perhaps some people Actually do want to get off at Exeter St. Thomas. The universe Is a cosmic joke.
Poem
I went for a walk Down to the quay By the river In the sun. I’d bought a chocolate milk From M and S Food Hall, Sat on a planter on the cobbles, Necked its fine rich nectar. Such fun. Although I was the only one there When I get up to put the bottle in the bin, I took my bag with me, Because, you know, You can never be too sure. My friend James is in his 70s and recently Had his very first pickled egg, So you never know what’s coming. Anyway. The quay. It was nice.
Poem
I was in the men’s section At Exeter Primark When the tannoy announcer said, ‘Could security Please be aware That Mister Strange Is in the men’s section. That’s Mister Strange In the men’s section.’ I looked around But I couldn’t see him.
Poem
I always look Too deeply Into things. Where others See objects I see Atoms.
Poem
I like the sunshine Too much To be an Overnight success.
Poem
While he was in the queue Getting their coffee She found a table and Pushed two chairs in, Pulled out one for herself, And one for the one She wanted him to sit in.
Poem
(In an Exeter coffee shop I overheard someone complaining about their neighbour who apparently spent most of the day sieving his gravel).
The gravel siever has a cluttered attic. He’s out there now, He’s out there every day Sieving his gravel, And by all accounts he’s got a cluttered attic, Cluttered with boxes, The boxes he had when he moved into the bungalow Whose gravel needed sieving.
Does he ponder on those boxes as he Sieves his gravel? Does he ponder on sieving his gravel as he Pokes his head in the loft Like a Jack in the Box Regards the clutter and lets out a mutter? There’s no single performing. There’s no shingle uniformity. There’s so much going on in the world But only two things going on in his.
Poem
I went to the ticket office. The man behind the counter asked, ‘Single?’ Is it really so obvious? I sat in my seat on the train. The notice above me said, Available. Is it really so damn obvious?
The A303 isn't as long as it used to be (It shrunk)
In prehistoric times, Apparently, The A303 Didn't stop at Exeter, But kept on going.
Continental drift played a part, Of course. Dinosaurs, and then The Romans Used it to go to Present day Nova Scotia. There were tea rooms, so peaceful, Very pleasant. Mind you, no Motorways in those days.
Genghis Khan Got stuck behind a tractor. Emperor Napoleon Got stuck behind a tractor. The Earl of Effingham Got stuck behind two tractors. And I bet he was Effingham.
The Moon was slightly closer back then. Stone Age man Worshipping cats eyes gleaming Brighter on account of the Moon glow Not quite so far For Armstrong and co to go.
Cowboys in the layby, And the hunter gatherer clans of Wiltshire Refused to welcome outsiders. Mostly we just Left them to their own Devizes.
Poem
There once was a man from the A303 Who wanted to go to Honiton via the B353 He took the A3033 And then the B453 And then the B353 itself but he ended up in Chard.
Poem
I'm a trainspotterspotter. There were two fine examples In Exeter St David’s last night. I spotted both of them Lurking amid the passengers With their notebooks and their cameras And their anoraks. But then I noticed that I had been Spotted by a trainspotterspotterspotter And that he was being spotted By a trainspotterspotterspotterspotter And that he was being spotted By a trainspotterspotterspotterspotterspotter And so on Until the time it would take to Explain all of this would be more time Than there is in the whole of existence More than all of the grains of sand on earth Or stars in the universe So it's just as well that They kept the buffet open late.
Poem
My cousin Phil Slipped at the top of Telegraph Hill Bounded end over end In a never ending cartwheel Right from the very top, Then straight through the middle Of a loving couple's picnic, Damaging a sausage roll And two scotch eggs Virtually beyond repair Falling at such a velocity His shoes flew off And one of them clouted a nun Who shook her fist at him. Phil Still managed To blend into the left hand lane Of the motorway.
About 25 years ago I used to work in a shop In Sidwell Street And at lunchtimes in the summer Sunbathe on the flat roof, From where You’d be able to see The cars snaking up Telegraph Hill. Probably wouldn’t have been able To see Phil, though, Because he would have been too small And he didn’t exist, really.
Looking back on my Edinburgh Fringe this year, I’m astounded at how little went wrong this time. It’s weird, but every one of my visits to Edinburgh can be recalled through what went disastrously wrong. For example, in 2015, I lost my passport during the flight up to Edinburgh, and I would need it again a month later for a trip to New York. In 2016, I arrived in Edinburgh but my luggage went to Honolulu, so I had to do the first two days with the same clothes I’d worn on the plane, and none of my props. In 2017, things actually went quite well but I’d accidentally booked not enough days at my accommodation and had to find two more nights to stay somewhere in the city. In 2019, my train only got as far as Preston and had to turn back because the line was flooded, and then when I arrived in Auld Reekie I discovered that my show wasn’t listed in the PBH brochure. (My fault, I should have checked). And then on the train home, someone stole my luggage!
So I suppose all of these were damn good learning experiences, and this year I had flights sorted, accommodation booked, I’d double checked the PBH brochures, I had my favourite venue, (Banshee Labyrinth), and I had a show without any props, so if something happened to my luggage, then the show could still go on.
There were other things I did differently this year which seemed to work. For a start, I listed the show in the main Fringe brochure under comedy rather than spoken word. This was the first time I’d done this, (mainly because I knew I had a show which had a fair amount of comedy in it, unlike 2015’s Static, or 2017’s In the Glare of the Neon Yak). And I think this did lead to a slightly higher number of audience members. The idea of this came from a little research I did where it transcribed that a lot of people who get the Fringe brochure only ever look at the sections which interest them. Theatre, for example, or comedy. My own interest is comedy, for example.
The other thing I did was to include my name in the show title. For a long time the show was called ‘Yay! The Search for Happiness’, but I decided that this sounded too much like a motivational speech, and the title itself hinted that it ought to come with some kind of trigger warning. I decided on ‘Robert Garnham, Yay!’, which I think really worked.
Another thing which was different this year was my whole attitude. In years past I’d take a show to Edinburgh and feel as if all of my eggs were in one basket. If this failed, then I was a failure too by extension. And also, it has to be admitted, I was never as sure as my shows in the past, never one hundred percent convinced that I was writing or performing to the maximum of my (possibly limited) abilities. This year, with a show which had no props or music to hide behind, I had made sure that I knew the show inside out. I’d been rehearsing the thing since early 2020 and I felt that I knew every nuance of it. As a result, I felt much more relaxed while talking to people about my show. If an audience came, well, then it came. If it didn’t, then at least I knew I’d done my maximum.
And also, I had my writing, now. I wasn’t just a comedy performance poet. By the time I got back to Edinburgh in 2022, several things had changed in my career. I was now a published writer, humorist, newspaper columnist as well as a comedy performance poet. This helped me to see what I was doing the context of someone who wasn’t putting all of his hopes and dreams into one show. If the show was a flop, (a show I;d given everything to), then at least I had short stories in magazines, and people reading my newspaper columns. All would not be lost!
This all helped me be incredibly more relaxed in Edinburgh. It’s only taken about ten years, but I felt I was negotiating the fringe with some degree of knowledge which I could fall back on. I even started to enjoy flyering.
Yes, you read that right. Traditionally, I hate flyering. Dyslexia manifests itself with me with an inability to speak to strangers or say things on the spur of the moment. I cannot improvise to save my life and a witty comeback is a three hour process. I find engaging with other human beings to be absolutely exhausting, yet this year, I had something I could describe very easily. ‘A search for happiness on the high seas. Poet in residence on a fish factory ship!’ My eye-catching flyers helped tremendously, too.
And finally, I decided that this would all be an adventure. If it all went tits up, then it would be something to write about. After the last two years where nothing much happened, it really did feel like the most daring thing in the world to go to another city, another country, and bring a show with me. I knew that in the dark days of winter, I’d sit back and ponder on the people I met, the places I went, the lovely audiences I had.
Will I be back next year? In all likelihood, yes. And here are my highlights:
1. The young Scottish couple who came to my show and chatted afterwards about seaside towns. I’d pulled them in to the show at the last minute and worried that they wouldn’t like it. They did, and they bought a book. They told me the name of the Scottish town where they lived. I had to ask three times because I didn’t understand the answer. Abercernichnie? Aberlakichnee?
2. The lady who came to my show and flung her arms around me at the end, and then, much to my surprise, so did her husband!
3. The man who said that my show should be on Radio Four. But it was noisy in the bar and I thought he’d said he was from Radio Four and I got unnecessarily excited!
4. Gecko came to my first show and seemed to really like it, he laughed at all the funny bits and this helped the rest of the audience laugh too.
5. Ditto Alexander Woody Woodward, who it was a thrill to meet in the flesh.
6. The fight which took place during my penultimate show in the audience. Yes, you read that correctly. An audience member took exception to the noise coming from the bar of the Banshee. She went and told them to be quiet, in a very feisty manner. Next thing I know, she was laying into them! I had a great audience that night and it seemed to bind us all together as a shared adventure.
7. The wonderful audience I had at the last show, which included my good friend Elizabeth McGeown and also my regular ‘Robheads’ from Leith, who brought me a lovely present to open on the way home.
8. The tourist who took a selfie with me, and then another tourist who asked for my autograph, I suppose, just assuming that I was famous because I had a show!
9. The taster session I did at St Andrew’s Square during which I had a very big audience, a lot of whom were filming me on their mobile phones.
10. Selling loads of books!
11. Getting home that night and thinking, oh my god, was there really a fight tonight?!
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure of performing at many venues and entertaining audiences. I’ve been lucky enough to have some of these filmed, either as snippets, or the whole show. Collected here are some of those which I didn’t put on YouTube, fearing that to put my best work on social media would leave me with nothing to perform in public.
So here, for a limited time, are the recordings of some of my favourite poems. The audio from these and others appear on my CD, Juicy, which can be ordered here: https://robertgarnham.bigcartel.com/product/juicy
I’d like to thank those who have filmed me including Laura Jury and Danny Pandolfi
So today I performed my annual New Year’s Day poetry extravaganza. And as I’m staying in Brixham at the Muv’s, this took place in the room at the back of her garage where I normally rehearse, a place I have nicknamed the ‘Sunrise Rehearsal Studio’. I can make as much noise as I like in there and nobody can hear me, because the room is not attached to or near any other building.
The day before, I’d kind of made a New Year’s Resolution, which had two parts to it. The first is to concentrate more on comedy poetry, the second is to have fun performing. The first part of this resolution has come about because I feel that, over the last couple of years and especially since lockdown and the pandemic, I have spent most of my time doing things other than comedy poetry. And yes, while it’s great to experiment and try other things, I was just kidding myself that any of these were worth unleashing on an audience. Serious poems, serious pieces of writing, various artworks and ideas which had at least taken me out of my comfort zone, were the speciality of proper artists and proper poets who have made a career out of such a manner of expression. The one thing I’m good at, hopefully, and known for, is making people laugh through poetry and performance. And I hadn’t done nearly enough of this since the end of 2019.
The second part of the resolution is to have fun performing. I know this sounds a bit weird, what with my performance being very silly, comedic and clowning, but I’d spent far too much time concentrating on performance and theory and effect and not nearly enough on enjoying the process.
So today’s gig in the Sunrise Rehearsal Studio allowed me to have fun in the silliness of what I was doing and, hopefully, in such a way, connect with the audience. And once I’d made this pact with myself to enjoy what I was doing, well, wouldn’t you know, I started to really enjoy what I was doing!
2022 is here, now. And I have no idea where it will go or what will happen. I have a couple of projects on the go which might lead to something wonderful, or then again, they might not. But I’m determined that I shall have lots of fun along the way. I hope to see you out there in poetry land, too.
Happy new year to everyone, and here’s to a better future!
Exhibition Photo, Image by Vonalina Cake Photography
I first heard about Hazel Hammond about thirteen years ago. I had just started in performance poetry and someone mentioned this artist and poet in Bristol, who did a show in which she invited audience members to write and draw fake tattoos on her body, the idea being that she had a date and needed some tattoos fast. I then went to a gig at the Artizan Coffee Shop in Paignton, Hazel was headlining and her poetry was amazing, life affirming and very human. I became absolutely smitten with her as a poet and as a person.
A short while later I started attending various open mics up and down the country and one of these was Acoustic Night in Bristol. Hazel was there, and we became acquainted and I would stay at her house every now and then when I was visiting Bristol. Amazing company and absolutely devoted to art, she would tell me about her various projects such as Marietta’s Wardrobe in which she created a box containing postcards of the contents of the wardrobe of a lady named Marietta, and a poem to accompany each. Marietta’s Wardrobe was a study of memory, loss and grief and brought a curator’s eye to the keeping of memories. And when I put together my show about tea, which I toured throughout the UK, Hazel knitted a hat for me in the shape of a teapot based on the exact dimensions of my head.
Knitting is one of Hazel’s artistic mediums. She told me about one of her performance art exhibitions in which she knitted herself into a cocoon live on stage. The cocoon was then taken to an arboretum. In such a way, Hazel remains one of the most original artists you are every likely to meet, unafraid to blur the boundaries between disciplines, and poetry was at the heart of this.
I’m 2018, Hazel had a stroke. It was an incredibly anxious time for her friends and admirers. Her friend, fellow poet Andi, used social media to update us on her condition, but you couldn’t help but fear the worst.
During her recovery, Hazel turned to art as therapy, from the models and characters she would create with plasticine, to the exotic finger dancing she would develop when listening to music. But during this time, she found that words had left her. Afflicted with the condition aphasia, Hazel could no longer rely on her mind to deliver the words that she so cherished as a poet. In the film which accompanies her exhibition at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, she explained that she shunned the company of poets. I asked her why and she replied, ‘Jealousy’. Poets had their words, and Hazel did not.
The title of the exhibition is ‘Not the Same Poet, But Always an Artist’, which is an apt description of how Hazel’s life has changed in the years following her stroke. The film details her use of art as therapy and the work that she has been doing in the community, using the lessons learned through her own therapy to help other stroke sufferers. In the next room, there are photographs of the knitted hats she has been making which deal with her stroke. One of them is a visual metaphor for the stroke itself, in which one can put one’s fingers as if right down into the centre of someone’s brain. I explained that I found this one a little creepy. She laughed and said, ‘It’s not real, it’s only a sculpture’.
There’s a lot of Hazel’s trademark humour in the exhibition, in spite of the serious message about art which it delivers. Photographs of Hazel wearing her hats are humorous. In one of them, she looks out slyly from behind what she calls her ‘Shouting Hat’, which she wears when she wants to shout because the stroke has left her with a soft voice. Another demonstrates the visual disturbances she suffered, and another is paired with gloves which demonstrate how she uses her fingers and hand gestures to add meaning to her speech.
The exhibition is hugely atmospheric and emotional. The viewer is left truly astounded at how Hazel has overcome such adversity through art, and it is hugely inspirational that she should make the absolute best of such a horrible situation. Hazel has always been an inspiration in any case, and this exhibition cements that feeling.
But what of the poetry? I wanted to ask Hazel if she thought she might write again, but it didn’t seem appropriate to ask. The question is addressed during the film. One of her friends says that perhaps it will come back. Maybe not immediately, and maybe not in the form in which it once existed. But then I thought, this whole exhibition is poetry. It’s the visual manifestation of something which speaks to the viewer emotionally. Hazel has gone beyond mere words and found an even higher form of expression, the likes of which most poets can only dream about.
I heartily recommend this exhibition, and I hope that it tours to other places once the run at the Arnolfini has been completed.
Hazel, photographed by Robert Garnham, Oct. 2021Robert Garnham wearing Hazel Hammond’s Teapot Hat, 2019
Are you coming?
Yes I’m coming
Are you going?
Only if you’re going
I’m going if you’re going
Are you coming?
I’m going.
I don’t know if I’m going.
I don’t know if I’m coming or going.
Are you going to
Only if you’re going to too.
Who’ll be there?
I’ll be there
Will you be there
If you’ll be there
We’ll be there
Even if he’s there
Who’s he
You know who he is
I don’t know who he is
Will he be there
I don’t know if he’ll be there if I
Don’t know who he is.
Will he be there?
Yeah.
Ok, lol.
Sorry about that lol
No probs lol
Tried my best lol
Can’t be helped lol
These things happen lol
Smiley face lol.
Lol.
Taxi or bus?
Bus or taxi?
Taxi taxi taxi
Bus bus bus
Let’s walk
Let’s not
Lol
Uber
What?
Uber
What’s that?
Uber is Uber
Never heard if Uber
Shall we take an Uber
How do you take an Uber?
Do you take an Uber with food or water?
Yeah, what’s an Uber
I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Uber
I once took an Uber and my Uber was a Ford puma
Oh it was a puma Uber
I once took an Uber and my Uber was a Subaru.
Do they have Ubers in Cuba?
Try underneath the ironing board it was there last time I looked
Sorry that was for someone else, lol.
Lol.
Lol.
Lol.
Smiley face. Lol.
What do you mean puma Uber?
I don’t think I’ll go if he’ll be there
He won’t be there
You said he’d be there
I didn’t say he’d be there
Someone said he’d be there
Yes I’ve heard of Uber
I said he might be there
Might he be there
He might not be there
I’m not going there if he might be there
My cousin uses Uber
Try underneath the sideboard then
He probably won’t be there
Who won’t be there?
He won’t be there
But he might be there
He might indeed be there
It’s a chance you’ve got to take
I might not go
Well I’m not going if you’re not going
And I’m not going if both of you aren’t going
So who’s going?
I’m not going
Nor am I
Me neither
Not if he’ll be there
And you won’t be there
Who’ll be there?
You know who
I don’t know who, do you?
So whose actually going?
Not me
Not me
Nor me
Or me
Still, it’s nice to spend time at home, isn’t it?
Lol
Lol
Lol
Lol
Hey everyone I’ve booked an Uber for seven.
Everyone?
Everyone?
Hello?
