Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Sun 25 Aug @ 23:15
Kate Tempest began her performance career as a rapper, now however she’s better known as a poet who has worked with the BBC, Channel 4 and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her Brand New Ancients (which won her the Ted Hughes Award for innovation in Poetry) charts the lives of two boys from South London, how they struggle with their life circumstances and how their outlooks differ as they move into adolescence.
Her lyrical monologue is a powerful and compelling narrative that mythologises the lives of ordinary people, challenging the perception that just because someone isn’t that rich or clever, their life is any less significant. Backed by a drum-kit, tuba, violin and cello, Tempest’s poetical perambulations have the weighty force of a Sunday preacher, teasing out and exposing the moral goodness in characters stereotypically judged reprehensible. It’s not just her prose that carries impact. Tempest puts her whole body into the verbal tirade, her expressions of pained emotions reflecting that of her protagonists while her twisting movements feel like attempts to pull them back from their misdeeds. This is a harmonious, empowering and essential piece of storytelling, enacted by a transfixing and inspiring figure.
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