• Tue. Apr 16th, 2024

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Award-winning poet to fly into the Peacock

An internationally renowned performance poet is taking to the stage of one of Sunderland’s newest venues, to share his unique talent with the city’s culture vultures.

Luke Wright, an award-winning poet and theatre-maker, is performing his show, The Toll, at The Peacock on October 12.  The show will use poetry to bring to life a number of characters in a performance that tours the flat-roofed pubs and half-bought couches of Brexit Britain, and even goes back in time to London’s gas-lit 19th century streets.

The show, Wright’s tenth solo tour, will be supported by Rowan McCabe, the world’s first door-to-door poet, who is fresh from a performance at Glastonbury.

Dan Luke, general manager at The Peacock, which will host the event in its upstairs function room, part of a programme of events that are being organised in the city centre venue, said: “We’re delighted to be welcoming Luke.

“We are keen to host a vast and varied range of events and shows to keep people of all walks of life entertained, and Luke is a really special performer, who will bring a unique talent to The Peacock.  Tickets are limited and available now, and we look forward to welcoming people looking for a good pint and a great performance.”

The show is part of the Sunderland Stages programme, which aims to take exciting artistic and cultural events to places across the city.

Wright is an award winning poet and theatre-maker.  Since 1999 he’s performed thousands of gigs with everyone from Beck to Patti Smith.  His shows have toured the world,and for the last four years, he’s performed to hundreds of thousands of people in Britain as John Cooper Clarke’s warm-up act.

The characters in the poems in the Toll are diverse and strange and all face moral conundrums.

His play ‘What I Learned From Johnny Bevan’ won a Fringe First and The Stage Award for Acting Excellence in 2015, a Saboteur Award in 2016, and is currently nominated for an Off-West End Award. Luke is a regular on BBC Radio and at Latitude, where he’s co-curated the UK’s biggest spoken word gig since 2006.

Tickets are £5 per person and can be booked online at http://www.artscentrewashington.co.uk.  To find out more about Sunderland Stages visit www.SunderlandStage.co.uk or check out @SunderlandStages on Facebook and @SunStages on Twitter.

By Emily