Bardens Boudoir's history as an old pool hall means its an utterly fab, spacious underground venue that you could easily walk past without noticing, any day of the week. Luckily, the LWF chalk board was out and although we had no idea who was on the bill, we went along because news from the fest has been fabulous so far. We weren't disappointed.
Chris McCabe got the words flowing with gutsy and truly Scouse readings of his poems. Serafina Steer's harp and vocal compositions, augmented at times by what appears to be an 80s Casio keyboard was both utterly entrancing to listen to and very funny with her surprising take on kitchen sink quirk folk. Nathan Jones cut the figure of an angry young poet with his strident, dramatic and compelling spoken word performance supported by the Wave Machines weaving a thrillingly atmospheric soundtrack of live synth and percussion, whilst looking totally cool.
And, while we're on the subject, this is something we're noticing about the Word Festival: it's attracting a bunch of really cool but excellently friendly word lovers. Take note if you want to meet like minded folk, there's still plenty to see.
Photography by Chris Sparrow.
The London Word Festival runs until 25 March and we can vouch for the fact that even if you don't know anything about the line up or can't quite compute the blurb, go anyway. You'll have a great time.
