Inky Fingers (Press Release)

I don't even like poetry that much - slam poetry might be okay, because it might be a bit like watching rappers. I do like Inky Fingers, though, on principle. They stage live readings and offer plenty of workshops... they are lively and do a great deal to challenge the stereotypes that make me think 'I don't even like poetry that much...' Here are some facts about the number four: Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being 1 and 2!  Four is the second square number, and the second centered triangular numbe! 4 is the smallest squared prime and the only such even number in this form! It has an aliquot sum of 3 WHICH IS ITSELF PRIME! And Inky Fingers is now entering its fourth year of events! We're welcoming you back with a MEGA OPEN MIC. On National Poetry Day, October 3rd, we'll be hosting all the all and all the sundry from 8-11pm, welcoming in a new season of our flagship open stage. Later on in the month, we're hosting the Luminate Poetry Slam on October 13th, and the READeasy Writers' Group returns on October 20th. Coming later in the year, as well as our monthly events, we'll be making a day of poetry happenings for the History Festival, and we've also got the return of the rise of the revenge of the son of the Dead Poets Slam. For all these and also surprises, keep an eye on the events diary, and read on for the details of the next two wonderful things. NATIONAL POETRY DAY OPEN MIC 8 – 11pm, Thursday 3rd October The Forest Café, 141 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh FREE We’re launching the fourth year of Inky Fingers events on National Poetry Day, with a mega open stage! We want to hear from everybody. We want your poems, your rants, your ballads, your short stories, your diaries, your experimental texts, your heart, your mind, your body. We want the essay on your summer holidays you wrote when you were four, your adolescent haiku, and extracts from your eventually-to-be-completed epic fantasy quadrilogy. We want to hear your best new work as well. And we want people to care about the way words are performed. Open Mic slots are five minutes long; e-mail inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com to sign up and be sure of a slot, and check our website. Sunday 13th October, 7.30-11pm, Ghillie Dhu LUMINATE POETRY SLAM w/ HOLLIE MCNISH a special slam for the festival of creative aging free, booking essentialInky Fingers is proud to present, in conjunction with Age Scotland, the second Luminate Poetry Slam! The hugely popular Luminate Slam celebrates Scotland’s unstoppable poetry scene and will be compered by Jenny Lindsay, winner of the 2012 BBC Slam and one of the vibrant cabaret duo Rally and Broad. The judges will be Eleanor Livingstone, director of StAnza Poetry Festival; Peggy Hughes, recently appointed to run the Dundee Literary Festival and Michael Pedersen of Neu! Reekie! renown. We are also delighted to announce that the evening will feature a guest performance by acclaimed performance poet Hollie McNish. Slam veterans know to expect any style and any subject from hilarious to heart-rending, political to philosophical and much more. Poets compete for a potential place in the final and a well-earned prize. So, come along to compete or to relax and enjoy the evening as a member of the audience. You, the audience are a vital ingredient in the judging mix. Luminate Slam is a FREE event but booking is essential and tickets are available NOW. To book your ticket: phone the Traverse Box Office 0131 228 1404 or go to the Traverse, Cambridge Street, in person. Participants! The Luminate Slam is now open for entries. Please email inkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com byFriday 13 September with ‘ FAO Luminate Slam’ in the subject line if you wish to be a participant. Places are limited, and successful participants will be notified by Sunday 15th September. However, there will also be TWO wildcard places drawn on the night – so if you are unsuccessful the first time, come along on the night and take your chances!

Inky Fingers Tonight.....

I Like Inky Fingers, the Edinburgh Slam Poetry Gang. I am not sure how this is going to work but thought I would give it a shout anyway...

Apologies for just reprinting their press release, but I got tangled trying to put the rules in my own words

BIKE SLAM
June 17th, 7.30 - 11pm
Forest Café
Free
Oil your microphone, inflate your poetry and check the tension in your performance -- Edinburgh Festival of Cycling and Inky Fingers are joining together to proudly present the world's ever cycling-themed poetry slam! For one night only, breathless performance poets and oily-fingered newcomers will compete together in a pedal to the finish. Expect poems on wheels, greased verse, SPOKEn word, terrible puns, and no lycra whatsoever (probably). Come to watch, come to vote on the acts, come to compete, come to enjoy yourself -- the bike slam is open to all. Emailinkyfingersedinburgh@gmail.com for more details, the full rules, or to sign up to compete (slots limited).
The Rules
- 12 competitors
- 3 rounds (12 poets with 2.5 mins each for the first round, 6 top with 3 mins each for the second, 2 top with 3.5 mins each for the third)
- First two rounds judged by 5 randomly selected audience judges, final judged by the whole audience
- All poems must either be bike-themed or contain one (or all!) of the following words: spoke, chain, gear, frame, brake, tyre, tube, handlebar, pump, puncture

We Are Poets, Why Do You Stand There in the Rain?

Inky Fingers are first up in this week's trawl of the inbox. We Are Poets is a film about six Leeds teenagers as they prepare for the world’s most prestigious poetry slam – Brave New Voices, and Inky Fingers are putting it on next week. 

At the end of the evening, they are having one of their usual open mic sessions. Since the film has been called a moving insight into freedom of expression, the North of England and the slam poetry scene, it's expected that the open mic might have a touch more heat...

While I can't agree with Screen International's comment that the film "should be mandatory viewing" (critics really seem to be mistaking themselves for the school dinner lady these days, telling everyone to eat up their greens), it has won a few awards so far:

Winner Youth Jury Award, Sheffield Doc Fest 2011

Winner Best Documentary Award, Darklight Festival Dublin 2011
Winner Goethe Film Prize, Berlin Zebra Film Festival 2012
Winner Audience Award, Univerciné Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Guadalajara International Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Bradford International Film Festival 2012
Official selection, New Zealand Doc Edge Film Festival 2012
Gala Presentation, Leeds Young People’s Film Festival 2012
Official selection, Sottodiciotto Film Festival 2012

The screening will be followed by a wildcard Open Mic, running 9.30pm – 11.30pm! Come along, add your name to the hat before or after the film, take your chances for 5 mins on the Inky Fingers stage!

Why Do You Stand There in the Rain? is my second find. Peter Arnott is one of Scotland's finest writers - the recently revived White Rose  is a storming critique of gender and collectivist politcs - and this show was commissioned for the 2012 Fringe. And although the company, Pepperdine University, are from the USA, they have made it back to the UK.

Apparently, their campus is in Malibu. They must be serious about the play of they are coming here from there.

Fair enough: Arnott takes up the story of the  Bonus Army March of 1932 on Washington DC: a kind of prototype occupy movement, in so far as it represented a spontaneous uprising of the dispossessed. The press release explains:

20,000 ragged and desperate First World War veterans and their families from all over the U.S. set up ‘Hoovervilles’ around the nation’s capital, to lobby Congress for the early release of a promised compensation package for services in the First World War. Congress voted no and Hoover called upon MacArthur and Patton to drive the veterans out of the capital. Armed with bullets and tear gas, 1,000 infantry and cavalrymen pushed the veterans out of Washington DC burning everything they owned.

I am inclined positively towards political theatre that looks to the past. First of all, it's a reminder that the state has been messing about with its citizens for quite a while - and Arnott is especially skilled at capturing the way that the Big Issue impacts on the personal. It has the added bonus of not being an attempt at explaining recent events before the dust has really settled: no co-opting of last week's news for this week's cause. 

And it has got tunes from Woody Guthrie, Bessie Smith and Leadbelly. 

TOUR SCHEDULE

Friday, 31 May Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Saturday, 1 June Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh
Monday, 3 June Òran Mór, Glasgow
Tuesday, 4 June Òran Mór, Glasgow
Thursday, 6 June Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock
Saturday, 8 June Aros, Portree, Skye
Sunday, 9 June SEALL at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Skye
Monday, 10 June Lochan at Dornie Hall, Dornie
Tuesday, 11 June Eden Court, Inverness
Friday, 14 June Mull Theatre, Tobermory

Three More Coming Soon

The critic's life isn't all cutting edge action. Sometimes it is good to go back to the classic plays, to be reminded of past times or the moments that made theatre popular in the first place. I've only seen Abigail’s Party on film or in amateur productions in the past, but the King's Edinburgh has a touring production that stars Laura Beale out of Eastenders.

For fans of kitsch, Abigail's Party has everything: aspiring 1970s couples, Demis Roussos, an erotic painting that would probably be in the bargain bin at Oxfam these days, faux-sophiticated, an unhappy marriage, teenage kicks (off-stage) and a final moment of tragedy. Mike Leigh scripted his characters pretty close to the edge in terms of making them unpleasant - is it still possible to feel pain when the victim is a socially vulgar bore?


Abigail’s Party by Mike Leigh 

Presented by Theatre Royal Bath Productions and Menier Chocolate factory Productions

Mon 25 February to Sat 2 March 2013
King's Theatre
Evenings 7.30pm | Matinees Wed & Sat 2.30pm

Inky Fingers ought not to be on my important list because they are in Edinburgh and they promote Spoken Word (one's too far away, the other's not usually seen as theatre). And yet, they are dynamic, and have free events - as well as supporting all sorts of interesting workshops through their newsletter. Their open mic is coming up at the end of the month and they have an admirable inclusive policy. 

"We want to hear from everybody. We want your poems, your rants, your ballads, your short stories, your diaries, your experimental texts, your heart, your mind, your body. We want the essay on your summer holidays you wrote when you were four, your adolescent haiku, and extracts from your eventually-to-be-completed epic fantasy quadrilogy. We want to hear your best new work as well. And we want people to care about the way words are performed."

Assuming I don't succumb to the temptation to dress up as Robocritic and give the audience some of my Prime Directives, they have a strong headliner in Ghostboy. He won the Performance Poetry World Cup in 2005, does cabaret routines with Golden Virtues and is known for his punk aesthetic and rough salmming style. He's also got a name that sounds a bit hip-hop.

INKY FINGERS OPEN MIC
8 – 11pm, Tuesday 26th February
The Forest Café, 141 Lauriston Place, Edinburgh
FREE

At the risk of losing my roots in Glasgow, my third inbox surprise is happening in Leith. Since I spent a week at manipulate, I am started to become confused for an East Coast native. Having the English accent doesn't hurt in that...

I am not sure whether Gagarin Way will make an interesting alternative Valentine's date. It is the sort of thing that I'd choose, and my tgrack record speaks for itself. However, it's still Gregory Burke's most popular play that doesn't involve soldiers. A look at how socialism is dying out in Scotland, it is regularly restaged, usually during the Fringe.

Interestingly, this study of the death of socialism is being produced by Black Dingo, part of a DIY not-for-profit organisation that aims to make sure that there are fringe style performances (not in one of the big theatres) outside of August. So the choice of play is quite appropriate: political theatre by a political company.

Of course, the decay of socialism from a utopian vision to the nasty cult it has become in Scotland is one of the great tragedies of the last century: perhaps thanks to its basic misunderstanding of human nature (thinking there is such a thing is a problem), it has turned into the sort of manipulative tyranny that it once decried in other ideologies - replacing the Catholic Church's promise of heaven with the workers' state. Burke focusses on how, on certain areas, it was socialism that made communities: its absence leaves only desperation and idiotic schemes.

It is a comedy, but Black Dingo won't leave it there. They've added a bonus show - comedian Keara Murphy doing a work in progress of her solo show Of Mice and Men. So: an unfamiliar venue, a company dedicated to DIY, a little bit of politics, some quirky comedy. Theatre growing despite the times, anyone?


The Loft at The Granary, The Shore, Leith
13,14,15 February 2013 7pm (1.5hrs)