Mouth & Music

Mouth and Music is Kidderminster’s regular spoken word and music event run by Worcestershire Poet Laureate Heather Wastie and Sarah Tamar at the Boar’s Head. Their December theme was “Principal Boys and Dames” so they invited Hilda Sheehan and myself to talk about Swindon Poetry Festival 2014’s “Man for a Day” event (which was tangentially about drag) and to share our poetry. Unfortunately, Hilda’s car broke down and she couldn’t make it so the audience were left at my solo mercy. I covered all bases theme-wise by wearing tails and a tiara but the poetry was a mix of some of my more party-friendly poems and not the darker work I included at Swindon.

 

Heather Wastie

 

The open mic had a really good mix and included next month’s headliners, the lovely Sarah Tamar and Ian Passey (The Humdrum Express: “The missing link between Billy Bragg and Half Man Half Biscuit,” to quote Attila The Stockbroker).

 

 

The final headline act for the party night was the wonderfully named Flying Ant Day who were a superb surreal joy. Their singer was alarmingly flirty in drag that included sexy santa-ess outfit, white tights, scarlet lippy and dangerous heels (‘No, hadn’t better dance too hard; I have to look after these; they’re not mine. No, really, they’re not. [pause] They’re my dad’s.’).