Tag Archives: writing

My new show, ‘Bouncer’ – A progress report

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

Barnstaple TheatreFest Diary – Day One

Barnstaple TheatreFest Diary

I arrived in Barnstaple yesterday lunchtime. I’d spent the train journey listening to an audio recording of my show and going over the finer details in my mind, so the journey didn’t seem so long. Went immediately to one of the cafes on the riverside, ostensibly just for a cup of tea, but because I’d taken up one of their outside tables (for four), I felt obliged to order a sandwich. When it arrived, I didn’t know whether to ask for a knife and fork or a stepladder. I don’t know how people were meant to get their jaws around it. Perhaps that’s the motto of Barnstaple, that it always gives you more than you asked for.
          In previous year’s I’ve spoken about the wonderful community ethos which comes with being a part of the Theatrefest. I went from the cafe to a bar / nightclub called Junction 27, where the taster session was scheduled, and I had a part in it. Within seconds of coming in through the door, I met two people I’ve known for quite some time, and quite a few people who chatted and showed an interest in my show, and whose shows looked genuinely interesting to me.
          I performed the ‘Who Wants Fame?’, song from my show, and it seemed to go down well. I was glad about this, because it was only the second time that I’d performed it at an actual gig. It was the dance that goes with the song that they seemed to like the best. I saw lots of other snippets from shows which I made a mental note to try and get to see. The chap dressed as a tiger who did some mime / clown work, which immediately spoke to the clown part of me. The comedian with a show called ‘A Wank In Progress’. (‘Difficult to flyer for that one’, he said. ‘You’ve got to choose who you give a leaflet to very carefully. Also, be careful when you’re doing a Google search’). And a show based around Moby Dick, the odd thing about this being that Moby Dick was one of the subjects I’d thought of doing a show about.  I’m quite glad that I didn’t, now!
          During the afternoon the thought occurred that a part of the show in which I have a conversation with someone would work much better if I had a puppet. I went out around Barnstaple with the intention of looking for a puppet, only to discover that, in a bizarre freak of circumstances, I’d already packed one. I’d hoped to incorporate it into my act the week before in Brighton, but I’d scratched it due to time, and just left it in my luggage.
          I did my first performance of the show at 5pm at St. Anne’s arts centre. I was worried that there wouldn’t be anyone coming along. It was a baking hot day, and I thought, well, who’s going to want to watch a show at 5pm on a Thursday afternoon? As it was, I had quite a respectable figure. Indeed, if this had been Edinburgh, then I’d have been over the moon with the ten people who turned up! And the show went well. They all laughed at the bits that I’d hoped they’d laugh at. And I only stumbled over my words once. And that was during the Who Wants Fame?, song, the very same song I’d sung that afternoon at the taster session! I was particularly glad with how the other fast-paced banger, Fabaranza, went. Indeed, this got one of the biggest audience responses of the show. And the bit with the puppet? It went down very well indeed.
          I went back to my hotel for a bit and got changed, as I was drenched in sweat. Three costume changes is probably a bit too much for an hour fringe show, and wearing a sequin jacket, feather boa and top hat on a very hot day, and dancing around a stage, is probably not a good idea!
          In the evening I went out to the Queen’s Theatre and I watched a wonderful performance of the David Mamet play ‘Duck Variations’. The last time I’d seen a David Mamet play had been on Broadway with Nathan Lane starring. But Nathan Lane wasn’t at the Barnstaple Fringe. It was a wonderful show in any case, and on the way home I bumped into five people that I know. A photographer, a comedian, a magician, and two actors. That’s the kind of great community there is here.
          There was due to be a social event at 10pm but I was too tired. I go to bed most nights around 9, and I knew I’d be dead to the world if I’d gone along. As it was, I was probably asleep by half nine.
          And now here we are, Day Two. I’m going to have fun, see as much as I can, and try to get people to come along to the second showing of Bouncer at 7pm tonight!

The Moon Wrapped in String

Hello,

My father passed away in 2017. In the days immediately following, I wrote a long poem based on the stories he would tell of his time working in the Australian outback. He was based in a township called Mary Kathleen, which is no longer there. Although the township was there to accommodate workers at a nearby uranium mine, my dad was there helping test armoured vehicles in the heat of the Australian desert. (He would next be posted to the jungles around Cairns, and then the frozen north of Canada).

I wrote this long poem remembering the stories he would tell and the characters he worked with. It’s set in 1969.

In 2018, the Artizan Gallery in Torquay were kind enough to let me perform this piece, and I asked a friend, Sharon Hubbocks, to accompany it on her violin. I also asked my friend Becky Nuttall to perform on the night. We had a lovely evening. We were later invited to perform it again at the Teignmouth Poetry Festival in Spring 2020, but we all know what happened in Spring 2020!

This recording has been on my phone ever since. Apologies for the sound quality, but it’s a nice little reminder of the night. This would be the only time I’d ever perform this piece.

The poster below was painted by my father, David Garnham, some time during the 2010s, and shows the accommodation huts where he and his colleagues lived.

The Moon Wrapped in String

The Contestants Await – A Poem from my new show, ‘Bouncer’

This is a poem from my show, ‘Bouncer’. During this part of the show, the contestants who’ll be taking part in the TV talent show are walking into the holding area.

And here they are, the hopeful,
Sequinned dreams and face paint schemes
And a yearning for whatever might
Lift them up from the 9 to 5 drudgery.

In their eyes, the excitement, for this is
Their day of literal reckoning,
Fame and fortune are beckoning,
A tinsel moment in a life of grey,
A chance to shine and dream no more.

If only they knew that it was just a game,
These tortured fools with hopes of fame,
Plastic sheen obscuring the humanity beneath,
Nervous faked smiles and white white teeth.

But you can sense it,
The hunger.

And who exactly have we got here?

A clairvoyant, who has no idea what’s coming.
A performance embroiderer, who’s got it all sewn up.
A man who looks uncannily like the late Cliff Mitchelmore.
How is that even a talent?
I could do that!
If I looked like the late Cliff Mitchelmore.

A woman who jumps down holes in the floor.
It’s just a stage she’s going through.
A man who sold himself
To become an opera singer.
He was a tenner.
A woman who eats office supplies.
It’s a staple diet.
Mind you her career was going nowhere.
It was stationery.

A ventriloquist who was always drunk.
I couldn’t tell if it was him or the beer talking.
A gymnast
Who was head over heels just to be there.

All hope to navigate this showbiz labyrinth
Around whose spiky corners, the fickle nature of
Public opinion
Waits to jump out with either a hug
Or the jab of complete indifference,
Instagram memes and hashtags of cruelty,
Or else, even worse,
The means to make them
Be forgotten entirely.

Underpants

Pants.
Big bag o’ pants


Each week he would give me laundry,
For he had no machine of his own, and I,
An amiable soul, willing to help and filled
With the goodness of one who wants only to
Spread joy to humanity,
Offered to do a load for him.
‘Someone else did offer’, he said,
‘But I’m too embarrassed to give them anything other
Than the good stuff.
Any chance you can do my pants?’

So each Friday he’d lumber me with a big bag of 
Grundies,
A bulging canvas sack
Filled to the brim with multi colored briefs, scats,
Boxers of every hue, a solid
10kg of smalls which I’d have to lug home
On the bus
Wondering how someone can go through so many
In one week
And deciding it was best not to ask.

And for months, yes, I would take part
In this underpant migration, that
Bulky canvas bag bulging with pant delight
As I stood on the lip of the bus doorstep,
The whole vehicle slightly tilting with the excess weight,
Wondering if the driver would charge me for two seats,
And then, scurrying up the narrow steps to the upper deck
Often wedged halfway to emerge gasping,
A cork from a bottle,  stuffing the pants beside me
Between the seats that no-one may gaze upon
This curiously crusty cornucopia 
And figure me to be
Some kind of fetishist.

But one day, oh,
Disaster struck.

Lady fortune deserted me at just the wrong moment.
Halfway down the bus steps in preparation of a
Pant-assisted disembarkation,
A jab on the brakes of the bus and I almost fell,
Toppled down the steps yet saved at the last moment
Only to see that bulky bulging bag bounce,
Fall from my hands, and spill its contents
Far and wide throughout the lower deck.

Like a fountain, an explosion,
A brief firework display
Of briefs,
The lower deck passengers,
Like astronauts welcomed home by a ticker tape parade,
A knicker tape parade,
Sat and flinched as pants rained down in all their
Gussetty glory,
Some put in mind of the Blitz, others
Of a particularly uncoordinated acrobatic display.
John from the chip shop had Y-fronts on his head.
Jan had a pair land in her lap.
The lad at the back went right off his KFC
When his six piece variety box was breached
By boxer briefs
While these suddenly animated underpants
Simply slithered down the bus steps,
A musty Niagara, a thousand stinky slinkies,
While I held on with all my might,
Now surfing this 
Predominantly Primark-produced wave of polyester pants,
While some kind of dark conjuring or undie witchcraft
Caused one of them to stick to the front windscreen,
As the driver, suddenly obscured
When a pair of XXL novelty Spider-Man scats
Wedged over his eyes, nose and ears
Like a multi coloured Mexican wrestling mask,
Slammed on the brakes.

Hardly anyone screamed.
That old wartime community spirit
As disposable gloves were handed around,
And a rake borrowed from a nearby hardware store
And the canvas bag refilled,
That I should escape that bus with my dignity
As tattered and shredded
As the vast majority of those intimate undergarments.

Monday morning
I handed the bag back.
Cheers, he said,
I owe you one.

London (A poem cut from my show ‘Bouncer’)

This poem was a part of my new show, Bouncer, but was removed just because of the way it fitted in. I still think it’s quite good. I hope you like it!

London

Hark, doth London linger.
In lingering humdrum exhaust fume longer
Doth it linger
With that sweat tang white van traffic jam
Lingering in the humdrum London.
River bridges glower tower block
Chock a block gridlock London.
Overcast mellow weather does it settle
Yellow smog hacking hacking Hackney cab London.
London fun with traffic tang
On the tongue
Coming undone I might succumb
Lingering loitering London.
Sunday parks car parks Cutty Sarks
Torn apart grabbed my heart
Seedy humping in London fun parts.
London looming in surly amid the
Hurly burly London fog so swirly
You never get there early
In London.

Sweaty set sweat stains
Train seat sweat stains and the
Sweaty armpits tube hanging
Sweat stains hanging from that
Tube strap sweat stains
Tube strap pulsing veins
Very much like the tube map.
Mind the gap.
Sweat stains armpit blotch like 
Map of Greater London.

Drunken wine bum
Drunk on London
London low life lowdown lurking.
London terminus ominous terminus
Probably verminous
Not cleaned since Copernicus.
Charge by the hour
Ever so sour looming tower
And I hover likewise
I have the power
Eardrum thrum in London.

City city pretty scape
Skyscraper cityscape 
Mass escape city pretty
Sitting pretty cityscape.
London undone fun run London
London squares and bars and fairs and cars and bears
Kick that burn that kicking in
Floating high on fog bank London.

I hover tentative grey sky
Square mile London longer
Doth it linger deep within
My city my thing my
History my place my dream
My London.

Snooker Slam Poem

Poem

‘Twas a night of balmy breezes,
Sensual and moist, the air itself
Awash with thrusting expectation and a breath
Which rattled the palm trees.
The sea, the surf,
The semi-naked delirium of sly bodies.
The moment our eyes met I knew
That by midnight we’d be ensconced in
Slippery passion,
And later that night 
as my hot hands hovered over your
Manly and feral chest 
You closed your eyes in erotic ecstasy and said,
‘I see Ronnie O’ Sullivan is
Through to the next round of the snooker’.

A momentary blip, I thought,
And as you drew me closer with your
Muscular arms
And I succumbed to the obviousness that lurked
Deep within the moment,
I felt a growl of pleasure rise up within you
And the following words spilled forth
From your sensuous lips:
‘And Mark Selby is up three frames to one
In the quarter final’.

I’d seen you in the cocktail bar,
All trendier promise and the kind of body
That if it were any more buff
Would have been that of a buffalo,
And our eyes had met in the steamy heat,
And I’d felt the exotic wonder that time should deliver
A man who made my heart a-quiver
Knowing all along it was too good to be true,
When I said I wanted to spend the night with you,
To which you’d replied, but have you got a long cue?
(I’d thought you meant
The other kind of queue).

Now here we are in the throes of passion
And as I tried to lose myself
To the insanity of the moment,
That inexorable oblivion 
Of skin on skin and souls ablaze
And the sheer physicality of heavenly bliss,
You purred,
‘John Higgins came from a five frame deficit
To go in to the semi.
It’s just a question of getting that moment of luck.
But you have to earn luck, don’t you?
 Sure, your opponent can miss a shot,
But you’ve got to take advantage.
Don’t let the moment slip.
Foul shot and a miss.
Foul shot and a miss.
Foul shot and a miss.
And then before you know it you’ve reached
Some kind of parity with your opponent
Sometimes
Sometimes
Sometimes
The pink just wont go in
No matter how much you chalk your cue.
The pink just wont go in
The pink just wont go in
Tickets to the final are sixty quid a shot.
The pink just wont go in.
Oh my god,
Ronnie O’Sullivan!

We lay in each other’s arms for a bit
And then, quietly, you sing,
‘Snooker loopy nuts are we.
Me and him and them and me.
We’ll show you what we can do
With a load of balls and a snooker cue.

Pot the reds and
Screw back
For the yellow green brown blue pink and black.
Snooker loopy nuts are we
We’re all snooker

Loopy.’

Ink to the Pen

Hello, here’s one of my earliest poems from around 2009 / 2010. It’s an experimental piece which I only ever performed once, and then forgot completely about, until I found a video of it. This is from a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Anyway, the video is below and that’s followed by the poem.

Vintage Robert Garnham experimental sound poem
Poem

Ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Think to the pen to the page to the mic.
Wink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Sink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Pink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Drink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Kink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Link to the pen to the page to the mic.
Zinc to the pen to the page to the mic.
Jink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the pen to the page to the mic.
Link to the kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the page to the mic.
Zinc to the link to the kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the page to the mic.
Jink to the zinc to the kink to the drink to the pink to the sink to the wink to the think to the ink to the page to the mic.

Gasp.

Jonathan removed my antlers and said, ‘Not in here, the clientele are mostly Dutch’.

When

Poem

When does a mess become a muddle?
When does day become the night?
When does a spillage become a puddle?
When does a shudder become a fright?

When does a brag become a boast?
When  does a mess become a fuss?
When does bread become toast?
When does a train become a rail replacement bus?

When  do we become middle aged?
And do we only know we are middle aged when we've lived
Our whole lives?
Is it only then that we can look back and say, oh yes,
That's when I was middle aged, that's when I had a
Midlife crisis,
The day I went out and bought a jetski?

When  does a crowd become a throng?
When do pants become a thong?
When does a dirge become a song?
When does a whiff become a pong?

When does a settee become a sofa?
When does a look become a demeanour?
When does a pamphlet become a brochure?
When does a verbal warning become a grievance procedure?

When did I decide that maybe you weren't the one for me?
Was if at the opera, or was it in the supermarket?
Or was it that time I came home and found you in bed
With a stamp collector from Barnstaple?

When does a trumpet become a bugle?
When does an imposition become an impertinence? 
When does prudent become frugal?
When does a TV advert become a nuisance?

When does pruned become sheared?
When does uncanny become weird?
When does stubble become a beard?
When does a poem not have to rhyme?

When do we lose ourselves to the delirium of the
Beauty of the world of the planet of the people of the creatures
Of the moon of the tides of the sea of the land of the cities of the
Absolute if the spiritual of the technological or the brave of the bountiful
Of the beautiful, possibly at two PM on a Thursday afternoon.

When does it all become meaningless?