John Cooper Clarke

We went to see John Cooper Clarke in Whelan's on Wednesday night; hard to beat. It was excellent in spite of or perhaps because of the unrelenting stream of appalling old jokes

He gave a trip through memory lane with classics like Beasley Street and the updated new version Beasley Boulevard. An engaging and thoroughly affable performer, Clarke is an object lesson to all those poets who feel poetry readings should be serious affairs, with every word enunciated in droning, affected tones. New material was excellent and the crowd when offered a choice began to call for more of it; Clarke seemed mildly pleased that his newer poetry was as well received as the classics. Still there were no shortage of requests for Chickentown or Twat although the repeated calls of "twat twat!" from behind us made a few of the uninitiated a little antsy. Oh okay, it was me, i didn't know it was actually a title of one of his poems I just thought an unusually harsh critic was in the joint!

A great Poet, a great night, a great gig - do yourselves a favour and get to see him, travel if necessary, but see the man.

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