Robert Garnham: Poetry As Comedy

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My name is Robert Garnham and I call myself a spoken word artist. I call myself a spoken word artist because that sounds kind of worthy and interesting and perhaps even a bit youthful, but what I actually mean is that I’m a comedy poet. I perform funny poems at people. Some of the time, the audience laughs. And if the audience doesn’t laugh, then at least I can console myself with the idea that it doesn’t have to be funny. It’s poetry. The laughs are incidental.

I’ve been performing for about seven years now and I’ve had the honour of doing so at some of the top spoken word nights in the country, such as Bang Said The Gun in London, Evidently in Manchester, and Hammer and Tongue both in Bristol and Brighton. I have taken a show to the Edinburgh Fringe for the last three years, too. I’ve been places I wouldn’t normally see, like Lancaster, Wolverhampton, Swindon, Milton Keynes, Bovey Tracey. I’ve stayed in a lot of spare bedrooms.

I got in to all of this by accident. In 2009 I’d just finished studying undergraduate and I had a lot of spare time. I decided that I needed to see more culture. The only problem with this was that I lived in Paignton, and the only culture in Paignton is the strange fungus that grows in the bus station. I took myself to the Blue Walnut Cafe in Torquay for Poetry Island, a night of performance poetry hosted by poet / comedian Chris Brooks.

I hadn’t any idea what performance poetry was, but I really enjoyed it. At the time, Poetry Island was a crazy night of experimental comedy mixed with spoken word and stand up, with regular performers such as Jeff Sleeman, Jackie Juno, Bryce Dumont, Chris Gower and Clive Pig. People would work with props and employ the methods of stand up and improvisation. I thought that this was normal for performance poetry, so I joined in!

Soon Chris asked me to appear every month. And oh, the things that I did! I once built a robot on stage and then got the robot to do my set for me, while I read a newspaper. I sellotape PG Tips tea bags to my forehead. (I can’t remember why). I performed out in the street shouting in through the window, and once I delivered a whole set while eating cream crackers. Amazingly, amid the comedy and the craziness, all of this was seen as normal!

Poetry Island would have headliners come down from further afield, and my career was shaped and encouraged by people such as Byron Vincent and Rachel Pantechnicon. Word started to leak out that I was interesting, and Rachel got me gigs in London and Bristol. I then started to do well in slams, and this kind of signalled a change in my performances, moving from physical comedy into the actual words. (I once performed a poem which was an empty stage where I should have been. How conceptual i was back then!). I discovered that away from the Blue Walnut, the emphasis was more on content and sentences and the sorts of things that people expect from poetry. I also discovered that poetry can tackle issues such as gay rights, representation, social matters, and that an audience will be more affected by an issue if you can also make them laugh. Slam poetry audiences eat this kind of thing up. This also had an affect on my performances, and i think, helped me to become a more rounded performer.

The local spoken word scene in Torquay has calmed down somewhat. I remember when Chris Brooks proudly announced that there were poets from Exeter, and the audience thought it was the most amazing symbol of globalisation that people should come such a distance to perform. In the last six or seven years, there has been a remarkable crossover between page poetry and performance poetry, which you don’t often get in other areas. There are also so many diverse styles of poet and delivery, from Joanna Hatfull and her surreal storytelling, to Tim King with his love of wordplay and social justice.

So the local scene is now a vibrant place of experimentation, crossover and support, with attentive audiences and a willingness to be different which you don’t get at places like Bristol or London. Comedy is still a big part of the local scene, with Jackie Juno performing regularly and newcomers like Nick Degg, Rich Green, Julie Mullen and Ellie Davies combining serious issues with comedy, wordplay and originality.

And I may have calmed down a bit, in the last seven years, but every now and then I will dress up as a chicken for no reason.

Robert Garnham will be peforming at tbe Devon LaughFest 2016.

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