The Spoken Word

I went to an open mic called The Spoken Word last night at the Exhibition Hotel, just outside Bootham Bar, very close to some big church the locals call the "Minster".

I hadn't been to this pub before. It seems a popular place (location location location!) and they serve food til late. Unfortunately there was only one bartender on and he was a foetus at that (if you're out of Golden Pippin, turn the clip around, you fool). The open mic was in the conservatory in the back.

The crowd was almost entirely white, middle-aged and middle class, but it's not like people can help being these things. I was one of four people with North American accents. Everyone seemed to know each other and they were welcoming to a new face. The atmosphere was that of a salon in someone's glass-walled parlour.

I seem to be meeting a lot of retirees. Not that this is a bad thing, but I think I would like to meet some people my own age, if only for the shared pop culture references. How do you meet people in their thirties, anyway? Or in their forties, for that matter? Are they all busy hatching children and only make friends with other parents?

Participants can read pretty much anything that takes their fancy; it doesn't have to be one's own work. There is a sort-of theme (this month's was "goodbye summer, hello fall colour"), but it's only a suggestion. There was a lot of poetry and a few short stories, but there was also a reading from a musty old book of observational essays about trains by Hamilton Ellis. I live with a train geek, and try as I might, I just don't feel the pants-peeing excitement at the sight of a Deltic like some of these people do. But it added to the variety of the night.

The Spoken Word wasn't the late, lamented Freed Up of Manchester's greenroom (R.I.P.), but it was very good in its own way. The quality of the original writing was high, although naturally some of it grabbed me more than others. Mostly I was impressed by the voices themselves: these people are skilled orators.

It was a friendly crowd and I was encouraged to participate. "I write, but I don't speak," I explained feebly. That's ok! you can read someone else's work, or someone else can read your work! they said. I get a lot out of attending performances (beats watching tv, or it would if I had one), but I really don't have any interest in performing myself, so I will have to give it some thought. 

For some reason, several plates of lovely greasy pub food arrived at the interval (a couple of pizzas, chips, cheesy chips (woo!), sausages). As the night was free, this was all the more surprising. A gift from the creative writing gods? Alas, I wasn't hungry so I didn't have any. There's always next month.