Showing @ Assembly George Square, Edinburgh until Mon 26 Aug @ 18:00
With all the excitement of the Fringe the phrase “spoken word” doesn’t really get the pulse racing. And yet it’s a category full of gems and huge amounts of talent, one of which is poet Luke Wright. Hidden away in Assembly’s Box, Luke looks like an over-sized, middle class, baby-faced Russell Brand. At times both topical and satirical, in many ways this is stand-up, and yet it’s so much more; Luke is entertaining and evokes plenty of laughs both in between and during his poetry, but his real strength – perhaps unsurprisingly – is in storytelling. Starting and ending on a high, there’s a narrative arc that takes the audience down into a thoughtful near-melancholy and all the way back up again.
But surely the best thing about this production is how accessible it is. This isn’t some stuffy Byron of a chap sitting reading from a book; Luke is performing, clutching at his microphone like a rock star who got lost on his way to a gig. And his poems are ‘real’, both in terms of language and topic, from his posh plumber to his first kiss. Luke’s describing his own experiences, yet his language is so descriptive and his emotions so recognisable that it’s impossible not to be drawn in.