This wasn’t your normal comedy gig, but then I knew that. Rather than having stand-up comedians, it was the turn of stand-up poets. But don’t let that fool you, because both poets were actually very funny in their own right.

Elvis came on an got straight into his “epic tale of William Wallace… and Gromit.” He had poems covering all sorts of topics, including current issues like global warming (“Clarkson it’s your fault”) and the state of Premier League footballers. In amongst it all, he read out poems as though written by others, like David Cameron (“Call Me Dave”), David Beckham and Jamie Oliver. Even getting enough time to read a poem that was less humourous and more politically motivated. Even James Blunt and Simon Cowell were on the receiving end of some very funny put downs all in the name of poetry.

Luke was almost the polar opposite to Elvis in terms of delivery, appearance and length of poems. Opting to recite the poetry purely from his own memory, Luke flew to the mic and was away depicting the plight of “Fat Josh” in his attempts to seduce someone he liked. He did a poem that, although didn’t mention him by name, could not have been more about Boris Johnson if it tried and caused the only real stumble from Luke as he forgot some of the words to this poem. Luke’s poems tended to be epic journeys, from a girl’s tale of getting onto the X-Factor and being Britain’s favourite rubbish singer, to a heart wrenching story of a chip shop owner’s sign.

Both poets interlinked their poems with conversations with the audience that more resembled stand-up comedy, which was good as it broke things up a little. This was especially nice (for me at any rate) during Luke’s set; each poem was that long that a small comedic interlude was greatly appreciated.

If you missed out last night, both poets can be seen at Bridport’s Literary Festival tonight (31st October), details of which can be got by calling Bridport Arts Centre.

SL

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