The Bungay poet-performer, who helped reboot the spoken word scene, strides on to stage like a rock star with lines funnier than a comedian and sharper than a satirist. By Rowan Mantell
Poet Luke Wright conjures with words. They fizz and writhe and explode as he forages through the English language, marshalling and unleashing his poems.
They might land as streams of furious political invective or as genial blokey comedy or (in the case of at least one of his poems using just one vowel sound) as unadulterated hilarious filth.
For almost 25 years Luke has been at the top of the poetry pile – not in a poet laureate sense, but as a flamboyant force of nature, taking rhyme and rhythm on to theatre stages, into festivals and to national radio and television.
Earning a living from poetry is vanishingly rare. Luke has been doing so almost since graduating from the University of East Anglia. He writes, performs and tours, curated the poetry arena at Latitude for 11 years, regularly features on BBC Radio 3 and 4, has had several collections of poetry published and won acting awards for the visceral impact of his extraordinarily eloquent storytelling.
This spring Luke, who lives in Bungay, is performing the final instalment of his trilogy of inventive, brilliant and blistering verse plays.
Each one-man play is a tour-de-force performance. Luke stands alone, in character, and tells, in first person verse, a life story.
The Remains of Logan Dankworth charts the disintegration of political and personal trust as the Brexit referendum campaigns build. Twitter warrior and newspaper columnist Logan is determined to be part of the biggest political battle for years. Meanwhile his wife wants to leave London and find a better place to raise their daughter.
“I am my own support act. I’m very conscious that venues need a bar break more than ever,” said Luke.
Audience favourites include Essex Lion, the hilarious story of a lion which was (not) sighted on a Clacton campsite, and the funny and filthy Burt Up Pub which uses only the vowel ‘u.’
“People love the funny ones and the rude ones,” said Luke. “I aim to make people cry and laugh. I like to take them on an emotional journey, because life is so funny and sad.”
His own journey from raging young creator of invective-filled verse, part pop idol, part political satirist, part stand-up comic, to recently remarried 41-year-old father-of-two is charted in his poetry.
“I’m not qualified to do anything else!” he said.
“We thought that when we were 40, and at dinner parties, which is what we thought 40-year-olds did, we would just be able to tell people that we’d done this cool thing, poetry gigs, when we were teenagers.
“I make my living as gigging as a poet which was beyond my wildest dreams.”
He has written poetry for national television and for animations voiced by Robert Lindsay and David Soul, opened for the Libertines at the Brixton Academy, and played the London Palladium.”
He will launch another show this summer. “I’m adopted and I’m starting to look into that, so it’s going to be quite personal,” said Luke, who lives with his wife, two children and cats called Sir John Betjeman and Bagel. “I named one and my kids named the other,” he said.
The Remains of Logan Dankworth is at Norwich Arts Centre, St Benedict’s, on February 23, the Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich, on May 28 and Two Sisters Arts Centre, Felixstowe, on July 14.
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