This month's Bilston Voices was nothing if not diverse. Along with City Voices, it's often an eclectic mix but tonight's pushed it further than usual. They kicked off with Raj Lal, rescheduled from last time. She read the first chapter of a work in progress, a novel set during the 1984 riots in Delhi. It was gripping stuff. The best compliment that you can pay this kind of writing is that it sounds authentic and this certainly fit the bill. It sounded more like memoir than fiction.
Keith Melbourne was next with a set of poems with a local feel, some delivered in dialect. Most of them were clever and funny - one was sung to the tune of The Deadwood Stage. It was a versatile performance though with a more serious note being struck, and struck very well, by his poem "The War Artist".
The first half was rounded off by Ruth Parker who opened with a couple of her poems, as excellent as ever, and then moved on to a story, albeit written with her usual poetic flair, about a woman changing her life after her husband leaves. It was a good enough story, well crafted and entertaining, but personally I would rather have heard more of her poems.
I say that she rounded off the first half but before we broke for the interval there was one more poem, a tribute to the venue - the Cafe Metro - by John and Liz Rogers. It was short and amusing and they presented a framed print to the staff to hang on the wall. It is a nice venue, oddly shaped and pleasantly decorated with just the lack of any beer (apart from the kinds of bottled lager that I can't stand) being a drawback.
After the break it was time for something new. The organiser and MC, Emma, is a great advocate of spreading the joys of poetry and she has started a new feature of a shorter set showcasing a young writer. Tonight's was Emily Oldham who read a handful of her poems to us. If she was at all nervous it didn't show and she rattled through a set which may have been a bit top heavy with the preoccupations of youth but showed a great deal more skill and style than I could have managed at that age. (Any voices from the back crying "Or now" can leave!)
We moved on to Paul Francis who read a collection of extracts from his new autobiography. Paul has a lifetime as a teacher and writer and the anecdotes, combining elements of both, were strong and interesting. I'm not sure if they were more interesting to me as a teacher than to others in the audience but I can say that I enjoyed them a lot.
And so to Heather Wastie - or possibly Lily Bolero, the performance was, by her own admission, rather schizophrenic. Her poems were not just well written and extremely funny but brilliantly performed. Like Emma last time, she didn't read, she recited, freeing her to perform. As she went through the set she took on a whole range of different characters and voices to great effect. I especially liked the one where she "interviewed" the members of the audience at a classical concert, becoming character after character each one with their own peculiar and annoying, concert-going habits and each one critical of other members of the audience. Like Keith she finished with a song, complete with a taped backing, an instrumental break and a dance routine. It was hilarious.
So all in all another excellent night out. The only trouble is that they keep on raising the bar so that those of us who also sometimes get the chance to perform there will have to work harder in future to keep up. It's a good problem to have.
Keith Melbourne was next with a set of poems with a local feel, some delivered in dialect. Most of them were clever and funny - one was sung to the tune of The Deadwood Stage. It was a versatile performance though with a more serious note being struck, and struck very well, by his poem "The War Artist".
The first half was rounded off by Ruth Parker who opened with a couple of her poems, as excellent as ever, and then moved on to a story, albeit written with her usual poetic flair, about a woman changing her life after her husband leaves. It was a good enough story, well crafted and entertaining, but personally I would rather have heard more of her poems.
I say that she rounded off the first half but before we broke for the interval there was one more poem, a tribute to the venue - the Cafe Metro - by John and Liz Rogers. It was short and amusing and they presented a framed print to the staff to hang on the wall. It is a nice venue, oddly shaped and pleasantly decorated with just the lack of any beer (apart from the kinds of bottled lager that I can't stand) being a drawback.
After the break it was time for something new. The organiser and MC, Emma, is a great advocate of spreading the joys of poetry and she has started a new feature of a shorter set showcasing a young writer. Tonight's was Emily Oldham who read a handful of her poems to us. If she was at all nervous it didn't show and she rattled through a set which may have been a bit top heavy with the preoccupations of youth but showed a great deal more skill and style than I could have managed at that age. (Any voices from the back crying "Or now" can leave!)
We moved on to Paul Francis who read a collection of extracts from his new autobiography. Paul has a lifetime as a teacher and writer and the anecdotes, combining elements of both, were strong and interesting. I'm not sure if they were more interesting to me as a teacher than to others in the audience but I can say that I enjoyed them a lot.
And so to Heather Wastie - or possibly Lily Bolero, the performance was, by her own admission, rather schizophrenic. Her poems were not just well written and extremely funny but brilliantly performed. Like Emma last time, she didn't read, she recited, freeing her to perform. As she went through the set she took on a whole range of different characters and voices to great effect. I especially liked the one where she "interviewed" the members of the audience at a classical concert, becoming character after character each one with their own peculiar and annoying, concert-going habits and each one critical of other members of the audience. Like Keith she finished with a song, complete with a taped backing, an instrumental break and a dance routine. It was hilarious.
So all in all another excellent night out. The only trouble is that they keep on raising the bar so that those of us who also sometimes get the chance to perform there will have to work harder in future to keep up. It's a good problem to have.
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